NYC welfare food is shipped in barrels to the Dominican Republic - then sold on the black market

[WestVirginiaRebel]

NY Post:

Food-stamp fraud in New York has turned into foreign aid — to black-market profiteers in the Dominican Republic.

 

Last week, The Post revealed how New Yorkers on welfare are buying food with their benefit cards and shipping it in blue barrels to poor relatives in the Caribbean.

 

But not everyone is giving the taxpayer-funded fare to starving children abroad. The Post last week found two people hawking barrels of American products for a profit on the streets of Santiago.

 

“It’s a really easy way to make money, and it doesn’t cost me anything,” a seller named Maria-Teresa said Friday.

 

The 47-year-old Bronx native told The Post she scalps barrels of Frosted Flakes and baby formula bought with welfare money in the United States.

 

Maria-Teresa said she gets new barrels every few weeks from her sister, who buys everything at a Western Beef on Prospect Avenue near East 165th Street in Foxhurst.

 

The scamming sibling pays $75 per barrel to transport the items to the DR through Mott Haven’s Luciano Shipping. Sometimes the family fraudsters take advantage of a special: three barrels for the price of two.

 

Maria-Teresa said she uses some of the products but vends the rest out of her Santiago home, providing markdowns of $1 to $2 compared to what her buyers would pay in local shops.

 

“I don’t know how much of a business it is, but I know a lot of people are doing it,”

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Welfare's after-market...