Federal agents and State Police raided the 35 Top 10 Deli & Grocery on North Swan Street in Albany on Tuesday morning. The operators are accused of defrauding a federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program of more than $1.5 million during an 18-month period. (Will Waldron/Times Union)
Will Waldron/Times Union
ALBANY — The operators of an Arbor Hill convenience store were arrested this week on federal criminal charges that accuse them of redeeming more than $1.5 million in fraudulent food stamp benefits during an 18-month period that ended in December.
Federal agents and State Police investigators raided the North Swan Street store on Tuesday morning, carting away evidence that ranged from bookkeeping records to $20,000 in cash and more than a dozen cellphones.
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Two clerks were arrested along with Anwar Alammari, a Yemeni immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen whose son, Bandar Alammari, is the owner of the store and also listed as a defendant in the federal criminal complaint. Bandar Alammari has not been arrested and has been in Yemen since early last year, according to prosecutors.
Federal prosecutors did not seek bond for the two clerks, Rahmel Bryant and Kendell Goven, but described Anwar Alammari as posing a “high risk of flight” and requested he be held without bond.
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In court proceedings this week, they said law enforcement authorities had gathered evidence that shows the account numbers of food stamp recipients who live in other states had been stolen and were used to make an extraordinary number of purchases at the small convenience store during the past two years.
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In other transactions, the store’s operators are accused of illegally allowing individuals with food stamp benefit cards to purchase alcohol and cigarettes, as well as to receive cash back for charges made to the federally issued cards.
At the men’s initial appearance in U.S. District Court on Tuesday afternoon, they were escorted into the courtroom in the custody of U.S. marshals and Homeland Security Investigations agents. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul DerOhannesian told a federal magistrate that Anwar Alammari’s son and wife remained in Yemen and that Anwar Alammari had purchased a ticket Monday to fly to Saudi Arabia this week.
Federal prosecutors had filed “passenger notification” requests for Alammari and his son in March to be alerted if they purchased tickets to fly into or out of the U.S. The alerts are issued by federal agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration when someone buys an airline ticket or boards a flight. Prosecutors said they received an alert when Alammari bought the one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia this week, and that it prompted Tuesday morning’s raid and arrests.
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DerOhannesian also told U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul J. Evangelista that Alammari and his son faced the potential for additional criminal charges, including bank fraud and money laundering. He noted that some of the funds that were allegedly obtained by defrauding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) had been transferred to unknown accounts in Yemen or converted to cryptocurrency.
In November 2023, Bandar Alammari had applied for a license to allow 35 Top Ten Deli on North Swan Street to accept SNAP benefits, which are normally provided monthly to low-income and disabled recipients through Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, according to the criminal complaint. Hot food and nonfood items, including alcohol and tobacco, cannot be purchased with the benefits, and they may not be exchanged for cash.
But the complaint states that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which collects data on the federally administered program, found that EBT terminals at the small deli had processed more than $1.6 million in SNAP benefits between November 2023 and last December. And between June 2024 and last December, “the store redeemed 600% more in SNAP benefits than the average store of its type” in New York.
“Over $1.4 million’s worth of SNAP transactions in this time period show clear indicia of fraud, in that they were made with EBT cards issued to individuals outside New York, who would have no reason to visit 35 Top Ten Deli, and the card numbers were typed manually into a terminal, which is a sign that the cardholders were not present at the store,” the complaint states.
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DerOhannesian told the judge that during that period, and based on the size of the store, the SNAP transactions should have been around $100,000. He said that during Tuesday’s raid agents also found EBT numbers that had been written down on documents that were inside a safe. Prosecutors said a merchant would have no legitimate reason to write down EBT account numbers. DerOhannesian also said agents had seized 15 cellphones from a bedroom connected to the store, but it’s unclear what the significance of those devices might be.
‘Houthis’
At a detention hearing for Alammari on Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Walter disclosed more details about the investigation as he sought to convince Evangelista to keep the 53-year-old man in custody.
Walter made two cryptic references to alleged “terrorism” connections related to Alammari during the hearing, but provided no details on that information; the judge did not press him to do so. Later in the hearing, Walter also stated that Alammari’s son may have a connection to “Houthis,” a political and military organization that emerged in Yemen in the 1990s and last year was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S.
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But the criminal complaint does not reference any terrorist organization or alleged ties to terrorism.
Walter mentioned Bandar Alammari’s alleged connection to the Houthis when the judge was pressing him on whether prosecutors know where the money transferred to accounts in Yemen had gone.
“We have no idea where the money is going or what it’s being used for in Yemen,” Walter told the judge.
Evangelista, a former longtime criminal defense attorney, noted that the U.S. is “a country of immigrants” and that a defendant’s ties to another country or the fact they may send money to family there is not an indication of something sinister.
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“Detention in a case like this should be the exception, not the norm,” he said, before ordering that Alammari be released from custody but with conditions that include a curfew, limited travel and being required to wear a location device on his ankle that will be monitored by U.S. probation officials.
The judge also ordered that Alammari stay away from the North Swan Street store, not be involved in any SNAP benefit transactions and have no contact with witnesses or his co-defendants — including his son.
Walter told the judge that the two clerks arrested along with Alammari had given statements to federal agents on Tuesday about the store’s SNAP benefit transactions, including showing them information on a cellphone that showed one day last summer the store had processed more than $10,000 in SNAP benefit purchases. Walter said that amount of EBT transactions was more than any store that size in Albany County would normally process in a month.
He also told the judge the evidence in the case is “going to get more overwhelming.”
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Mark J. Sacco, who was appointed as Anwar Alammari’s attorney because Alammari said he could not afford to hire one, told the judge that his client has been a U.S. citizen since 1983, has no criminal record and has traveled to the Middle East regularly. He also said the government had offered no evidence to show his client had learned of the investigation or that the probe is what prompted him to purchase a ticket to the Middle East.
“It’s a financial crime, not a violent crime,” Sacco told the judge, noting that “Wall Street bankers” accused of stealing much larger amounts of money are routinely released from custody while their criminal cases are pending. “I do not think he’s a serious flight risk,” Sacco added.
On Tuesday, Evangelista ruled that Bryant and Goven, who have no ownership stake in the store but are accused of selling alcohol and tobacco products to customers using SNAP benefits or giving them cash would be released from custody while their cases are pending.
The investigation, which began 13 months ago, is among many similar cases being pursued by the Department of Justice under an initiative to detect fraud in federal public benefit programs and prosecute those alleged to be responsible.
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In June, federal prosecutors in Massachusetts announced they had charged 15 people, including 11 migrants alleged to be in the country illegally, with fraudulently obtaining more than $1.4 million in benefits from SNAP, health, disability and unemployment programs.
The increase in enforcement actions comes after acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memo in early April creating a National Fraud Enforcement Division.
“The American people deserve a government that stewards their money wisely and protects it from wrongdoers,” Blanche wrote in the four-page memorandum. “They rightly expect that taxpayer-funded programs will be administered fairly and protected from theft. Fraudsters who target taxpayer dollars do not just steal from taxpayers, they also prevent critical benefits from reaching those in need and sow seeds of distrust in government institutions and civil society.”
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