Convenience Store Owner Sentenced To 3 Years in Prison For Fraud

ALAMEDA, CA — An Oakland convenience store owner on Friday was sentenced to 37 months in prison for defrauding government benefit programs, U.S. Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds announced.

Ali Hassan, 32, of Alameda, unlawfully trafficked federal food stamp benefits from 2014 to 2016.
Hassan owned a convenience store on International Boulevard and members of his family helped him run it. The shop was an authorized vender for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, which helps economically disadvantaged individuals and families pay for essential food items. EBT cards are used to make the transactions.

The scheme involved charging fraudulent purchases that never actually existed to customers' EBT cards. Hassan would keep half the value of the fraudulent transactions and returned the remainder in cash to the customers. He also used customer's EBT cards to purchase items in other stores that he would then sell at his own store.

At sentencing, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton found government losses from the conspiracy to be over $1 million.

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