WASHINGTON — A Trump administration fraud task force has uncovered nearly $42 million in food stamp funds meant for needy families that were instead stolen to support criminal activities as well as the lavish lifestyle of a rapper with multiple arrests — including for repeatedly exposing himself to pee off his apartment balcony.
Vice President JD Vance and members of the Departments of Justice and Agriculture held a press conference in Cincinnati Wednesday highlighting the cases involving more than 40 defendants operating schemes that bilked the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and related programs.
“Two-hundred twenty thousand Americans could’ve eaten for the entire month of October if it were not for this $42 million in fraud,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
USDA Inspector General said the programs were raided “to line the pockets of fraudsters and bankroll other criminal activities like guns and drugs that make American communities less safe.”
One of the fraudsters indicted this month amid the crackdown was Mercedes New, an Instagram influencer, rapper and apparent adult content creator in Atlanta who goes by the name Shawty Dred.
New, who has more than 2 million followers and boasts about having more “Jewelry” and “Rolls-Royce’s than your favorite rapper,” was previously arrested in 2022 for urinating off his apartment balcony while completely naked.
“I’m famous! I’m on TV, bruh,” New reportedly told cops as he was arrested four years ago, according to Channel 2 Action News. “Neighbors said it was so bad, they thought about using an umbrella when they walked along the sidewalk,” the outlet noted.
Now, prosecutors have indicted him on more than 40 counts for food stamp fraud, mail fraud and aggravated identity theft for pilfering more than $4 million in benefits by obtaining hundreds of fraudulent debit cards and making his own company, Shawty Dred LLC, a SNAP retailer between 2025 and 2026.
Georgia police arrested New last November outside of a Walmart for selling the debit cards to passersby.
In a 2021 interview with the outlet Hip Hop Since 1987, he had boasted about Shawty Dred LLC taking in so much cash that he had plans “to open a total of three restaurants and one strip club in Atlanta, Georgia under my brands.”
Asked about his other future plans, the rapper said he anticipated “World domination lol” and “Having $100 million in my bank account.”
“SNAP exists to help hungry children eat; it does not exist to provide private jets to a guy like Shawty Dred,” Vance said at the news conference.
The influencer was arrested last Tuesday in Las Vegas. That same day, two other alleged SNAP fraudsters — Jorag Yaseen and Rami Kanaan — were indicted in Ohio federal court for allegedly stealing almost $30 million in fake electronic benefit transfer (EBT) transactions through their Chicago-based food retail stores.
The grocers allowed accomplices in a criminal organization that stole “thousands of Ohio SNAP participants” EBT account information “to be fraudulently processed, scanned, or swiped using
their respective point-of-sale devices” in their Illinois stores.
Other defendants were charged in September for also selling EBT cards, submitting fake crop insurance claims for up to $1.7 million to USDA, running a racket that used $2.4 million in fraudulently obtained food stamps to buy over 124,000 pounds of baby formula and then sell it for a profit on the black market.
Alleged fraudsters from Yemen who are now living in Ohio, Michigan and New York were also charged for stealing $1 million in food stamp benefits to pay for marijuana or exchange EBT card values for cash.
Dominican Republic national Fernandez Guzman additionally stole more than $22,000 in SNAP benefits, more than $98,000 in MassHealth benefits and more than $45,500 in Section 8 housing benefits — before being charged for using fake state ID cards and driver’s licenses in three states to do so.
“These schemes siphoned millions from taxpayers and robbed struggling Americans of the benefits they depend on so fraudsters could use them for their own selfish purposes,” Blanche said in a statement.
