Philadelphia store owner gets 3 years in prison for food stamp fraud

PHILADELPHIA – A Philadelphia store owner, who previously admitted to defrauding the food assistance program of more than $1 million and committing wire fraud, was sentenced to three years in federal prison after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigation.

Saud Saleh, 30, owned and operated Twinz Meat Market, a retail grocery store, now defunct, that was located at 3083 Kensington Ave. in Philadelphia. At his guilty plea hearing, the defendant admitted that he knowingly trafficked in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the food stamp program. He said he directed his employees to traffic in SNAP benefits, by purchasing those benefits from customers of Twinz Meats, which is illegal. The defendant admitted that within a 12-month period, he was responsible for a program loss of $1,125,586.

In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Court Judge Gerald J. Pappert ordered restitution of $1,125,586 to USDA and three years of supervised release.

The case was investigated by the USDA Office of Inspector General, and HSI. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Floyd J. Miller.