A Swansea man pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful acquisition of SNAP benefits. Almahde H. Nijmeh, 65, was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment and a repayment to the government of over 1.2 million dollars.
Nijmeh admitted to using an East St. Louis market in a fraud scheme to gain re-admittance by using the names of various family members to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program after being denied multiple times. He used East Side Meat market in East St. Louis as a front to accept loaded SNAP cards in exchange for cash equal to half or less of the included benefits since 2017.
According to court documents, Nijmeh and employees under his direction also accepted SNAP benefits for ineligible items like alcohol or tobacco products, up-charging customers for illegal transactions.
