SNAP benefits are under attack from Romanian scammers: ‘There’s a special place in hell for people who steal from the poor’

The outlet reports that members of Romanian gangs come to the U.S. — often illegally — and install barely detectable card skimmers on store payment terminals that the Justice Department says are “programmed with software to capture payment and personal information from the magnetic stripe” when SNAP users swipe their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards. The WSJ added that the criminals load the funds onto blank cards and withdraw cash from them or use them to purchase items to sell.

“The thought process that they were unorganized is not true,” Mike Peck, assistant special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Global Investigative Operations Center, told Moneywise. “They know how to get the materials that they need into the country, they know how to get the people they want into the country, and they’re specifically targeting U.S. benefits programs because of the potential for quick cash and money.”

In discussing such fraud, Ohio state Rep. Tristan Rader put it bluntly to the WSJ: “There’s a special place in hell for people who steal from the poor.”

When stolen benefits become a household crisis

While there’s no national data that’s specific to SNAP card skimming, a report from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that $322 million in lost benefits, “likely due to fraudulent activity,” were replaced between October 2022 and December 2024, with another $233 million in fraudulent losses predicted for 2026.

Last year, an average of 42.1 million low-income Americans received monthly SNAP benefits, with the annual cost totalling $101.7 billion.

Priya Fielding-Singh, a food policy expert and director of policy and programs at George Washington University’s Global Food Institute, told Moneywise that SNAP fraud can be “deeply destabilizing” because, with the federal government no longer replacing stolen funds, victims often have to make sacrifices in order to make up the difference.

“In a budget that tight, losing any amount of food assistance can quickly affect much more than food. Families have to take on debt, defer paying other expenses or reduce how much they are eating to make their money stretch further that month.”

Peck, meanwhile, recalled one victim telling him they were “loading up for Thanksgiving dinner, couldn’t pay for it all [and] had to walk away because these scumbags go and steal it.”

When it comes to skimming theft, the WSJ noted only a handful of states have invested in microchip technology, like that used in debit and credit cards, for EBT cards to prevent fraud. Ohio and Virginia, for example, passed laws to include microchips on EBT cards this year, while California says it saw an 83% reduction in SNAP thefts after introducing chip-enabled cards.

Still, merchants must also adopt technology compatible with the chip cards and, as the WSJ noted, criminals can find ways around chip-enabled cards, but authorities are making progress. The Secret Service says a nationwide fraud outreach program with retailers prevented $428 million in fraud losses and confiscated more than 400 skimmers last year alone.

Blair Keen, a Secret Service investigative analyst (technical advisor), told Moneywise that agents often bring information flyers to businesses and show them how to check for skimmers themselves. “And in some instances, we’ve left an area and then we’ve gotten called the next week that, ‘Okay, because you guys taught us, now we found another one,” said Keen.

In April, meanwhile, the Justice Department charged five Romanian citizens in the U.S. for conspiring to steal nearly $1 million in SNAP benefits in Ohio and California by placing skimmers in 7-Eleven and UPS stores, among other locations. In July, the Justice Department also arrested two Romanian brothers for using “skimming devices at ATMs, fuel pumps and other locations.”

“We’ve been very, very fortunate that they haven’t broken the algorithm on [the micro]chips,” Peck added. “If we ever get to that point where they’re able to break them, that’s a financial crisis we’ll face as a nation. So work has to continue, because if we don’t, who’s going to do it?”