Minimart owner gave $100 cash for every $200 of food stamps, is headed to prison [View all]

A Southeast Portland convenience store owner who paid customers 50 cents for every dollar that they had coming to them in welfare benefits has been sentenced to nearly two years in prison.

Investigators said Nasr Iskander operated his minimart at a Shell gas station on Southeast Powell Boulevard like an ATM by allowing card-carrying recipients in the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to receive cash instead of food.

Iskander might charge $200 worth of phantom food to a recipient’s benefits card, then hand that person back $100 in cash, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Iskander, in turn, would pocket $100 for himself.

Over 3 ½ years, Iskander swindled the state out of $189,000 meant to buy food for low-income Oregonians. But his customers also were willing participants in Iskander’s scheme.

Read more: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2018/02/minimart_owner_gave_100_cash_f.html