The other side of SNAP fraud: Illinois retailer accuses fraudsters of targeting store using stolen numbers from across country
Since the beginning of 2025, several people have reported their SNAP benefit cards were used to buy items at a small Lombard retailer in online reviews on Yelp and Google.
Now, the owner of Alsham Supermarket and Bakery is speaking to the CBS News Chicago Investigators to clear his name and rebuild his reputation.
SNAP Fraud
Earlier this year, we reported on the extent of SNAP fraud on Illinois recipients.
Thieves stole $21 million between October 2022 and December 2024. This was money that families could use to feed themselves and their children.
Most of that money was also reimbursed, meaning taxpayers paid twice.
In Texas, between May 31, 2023, and Sept. 30, 2024 — the last date for which federal data is available — more than $14 million in stolen benefits had been replaced.
Texas Health and Human Services oversees the Lone Star Card, which is that state's EBT card used for SNAP purchases. The agency said it reimbursed the last approved claim from 2024 in March 2025.
Benefits stolen nationwide after Dec. 20, 2024, are no longer being reimbursed, but the fraud continues.
The Lombard store
People from across the country began complaining in online reviews this year about their SNAP benefits being stolen "$367," "$290.76," "These people left me with $1.21 in my account!!!"
The complaints came from across the country including Pennsylvania, Colorado and Texas. But they had more in common than just mysteriously missing money. They all reported their EBT card numbers were fraudulently used at the same store: Alsham Supermarket and Bakery in Lombard, Illinois.
Ardavan Nazari owns the store.
"I have been here five years, working very hard on this store," he said.
Over that time, he says he added hot food, a meat section and a bakery.
"We're working hard here to get good reviews, good staff, good inventory," Nazari said.
So, when the bad reviews with the claims of theft started showing up, Nazari said: "People, they point their fingers. They're upset and they're mad because somebody stole their information. But the one who stole the information is not us."
Nazari spoke to some of those angry review writers.
"I start asking them over the phone questions like, 'Somebody stole your card? Or you give your card to someone?'" he said. "And they said, 'No, we have the card in the hand.'"
The Texas victims
Two of those fraud victims live in Houston, Texas.
On February 28, 2025, Kimberley Edwards swiped her card at one of her local stores.
"And the cashier told me, 'You don't have enough benefits.' So she tore off the ticket, and it read I only had $13," she said.
"It was just devastating," she said. "I was defeated. My main concern was, how was I going to supply food for my son?"
When Edwards checked her online SNAP account activity, she noticed the $432 transaction happened at Alsham Supermarket in Lombard.
"I've never been to Illinois," she said.
About a month later, the same thing happened to Lakeda Cunningham, who also lives in Houston.
"I went to Dollar General to purchase drinks, and when I swiped the card and put the code in, the cashier told me that it was insufficient funds," said Cunningham, "and I was like, 'That's not possible because my money just posted on April 18th, six days ago."
Cunningham paid for that purchase out of pocket and then checked the transactions.
"It said Alsham Supermarket. $162.11," she said. "It had been used that same day at 11:55 a.m."
Cunningham worried how she'd get through the rest of the month and put food on the table for her family, including her 6-year-old son.
"It feels like a violation," she said. "It's hurtful. It's frustrating. It's upsetting."
It was also confusing. She looked up Alsham Supermarket, and discovered it's 1,000 miles away from where she tried to shop within the same hour that same day.
"I've never been to Illinois," Cunningham said. "Period."
How a store becomes a victim
Back in Lombard, Nazari recently noticed a pickup in purchases. But until the accusatory reviews he didn't think much about it.
"We did like offer many, many discounts, you know, and decreased the prices," Nazari said.
And with some expensive items in his Mediterranean shop, he added, "We got more customers for that."
He calculated store visits went up 25% to 30%.
Jim Morley, assistant special agent-in-charge with the U.S. Secret Service in Chicago, said a store like Alsham is popular with scammers because of its exclusive and expensive inventory.
"Oftentimes, we see a particular store getting targeted because they're selling merchandise that the criminal is able to resell," said Morley.
Morley's agency investigates SNAP crimes.
"These are organized criminal groups," he said, who are stealing the EBT card numbers and PINs.
The scammers get that information from skimming devices and pinhole cameras placed over payment terminals in stores where SNAP recipients swipe their cards.
"Those cards will get placed on the dark web, and then we have local criminal groups that will purchase the card numbers," Morley said. "They encode on any type of card with a magnetic strip."
So EBT information can be stolen from someone in Texas like Edwards or Cunningham. Their card numbers are then embedded into the magnetic stripe on the back of a counterfeit Illinois Link card or any fake debit or credit card, and then used in a store like Alsham's.
Nazari is doing what he can now that he's aware of the issue.
"I don't need these reviews on social media to affect my business so, I'm going to do my part," said Nazari.
That means being vocal about him being a victim too, but also doing more to catch the criminals.
Nazari filed a report with Lombard police based on those out-of-state complaints.
He has turned over surveillance video and receipt reprints that match the date, time and purchase amount for at least one of the victims, Lakeda Cunningham.
Nazari has also increased security measures.
"Now we got like 12 cameras," he siad.
Nazari and law enforcement have a tip for SNAP recipients too — protect yourself as much as possible.
"Please, please, please protect your money. Lock your cards. Do whatever you can so nobody can steal your money. We stop it, I hope so, we stop it here," said Nazari.
The Illinois Link Card website offers safety tips on how to protect your card information from scammers. You can also file an EBT theft report, which is required of the Illinois Department of Human Services through state law, even though benefits are no longer being replaced.
Later this year, Illinois plans to become the first state to participate in a new federal program to allow EBT cards to be added to, accessed, and used from mobile wallets. That would mean no more swiping — lessening the chance a skimmer would steal the card information.
Other states are beginning to add the more secure chips to EBT cards. This allows tapping to pay instead of swiping.
California rolled out chip-enabled EBT cards earlier this year. Texas is still researching that idea.
