Two brothers from Romania led an organized fraud ring that used SNAP benefits to buy thousands of dollars of food at warehouse clubs in North Carolina and resell it, authorities say.
The pair were arrested Aug. 1 at a Charlotte storage unit after they bought $15,000 of food at a Sam’s Club in Matthews, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation said.
Marian Ovidiu Dumitru, 37, and Catalin Dumitru, 39, pleaded guilty to wire fraud July 2 in federal court in Charlotte, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina said.
The brothers, who entered the country illegally, were part of a ring that stole over $760,000 from the federal food program in New Jersey, Massachusetts and other states, the attorney’s office said.
The group used skimmers to steal data from electronic benefits cards used by SNAP recipients and put the information on counterfeit cards. They used the…
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