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To put this in perspective, legitimate supermarkets in the area average only $82,000 per month in SNAP redemptions.¹ Meanwhile, these two fraudsters were raking in $300,000 to $500,000 every month.²
Fraudsters Sold Charity Food Meant for Starving Children
FBI surveillance revealed the disturbing details of the scheme. Customers would spend hundreds per transaction—sometimes over $700—and leave with almost nothing. On May 6, 2025, investigators documented dozens of purchases over $100 without a single customer receiving groceries equivalent to their payments.³
The stores had no shopping carts, baskets, scanners, refrigerators, meat, dairy, or produce—but they still claimed to operate as grocery stores.
Even worse, investigators discovered that the scammers sold MannaPack meals donated by Feed My Starving Children, a nonprofit that provides meals for food-insecure children overseas.
“These are meals manufactured by the nonprofit Feed My Starving Children, which are paid for entirely by charitable donations and are intended to be shipped directly to food-insecure children overseas, including children in Haiti,” Foley explained.⁴
The defendants sold the donated meals for roughly $8 per package, profiting from food meant for starving kids in their homeland.
Massachusetts Oversight Failures
Even more frustrating, this massive scam could have been stopped easily. When Bonheur applied for SNAP benefits in 2022, he reported zero income—even though his store was pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly.
“It appears that the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance conducted virtually no due diligence when reviewing his application,” Foley criticized state officials.⁵
Bonheur collected over $10,800 in SNAP benefits while running his fraudulent operation, with every single transaction on his personal EBT card occurring at his own store—a glaring red flag.
Biden’s Policies Turn SNAP into a Criminal ATM
The $7 million scam isn’t a coincidence. Biden’s reckless spending on SNAP created the environment for abuse. In 2021, $128 billion flowed through the program, and $127 billion in 2022.⁶ By 2023, improper payments reached $10.5 billion, taking money from Americans while criminal operations thrived.⁷
Fraudulent SNAP activity jumped 55% between late 2024 and early 2025, with criminals now stealing over $102 million every three months.⁸
These Haitian migrants exploited a system left wide open by Biden’s team. During Trump’s administration, SNAP fraud was aggressively monitored and criminal activity was punished swiftly.
Now, Brooke Rollins is working to repair the damage. “There are vulnerable families in America that need this program that aren’t getting it because of the fraud and abuse that now we’re going to work to fix,” Rollins said.⁹
Justice and Lessons Learned
Bonheur and Alisme face up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines each. But the $7 million they stole is already gone—money that could have fed struggling American families for months.
This scandal underscores a clear lesson: when Washington hands out taxpayer dollars without accountability, criminals are the first in line to take advantage.
