The manager of a food business in South Florida was arrested by authorities Thursday morning after they claimed she had planned a strategy to “hijack” other merchants’ food stamp payments by posing as them.
The manager of 7 Star Market, located at 1502 NW 60th St. in Miami’s Liberty City area, Fidelina Othman Mohamad, 52, allegedly made $313,000 using funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, according to investigators.
The Bureau of Public Assistance Fraud of the Florida Department of Financial Services looked into the case.
Othman Mohamad, of northeast Miami-Dade, is accused by investigators of using fictitious checks to transfer SNAP funds intended for two other markets into a 7 Star Market account.
They said that she falsified the signatures of the proprietors of Al Wahid Foods, a store in Woodlawn, Maryland, and Mars Market, located at 6410 Sunset Strip in Sunrise.
According to authorities, U.S. Department of Agriculture agents became aware of 7 Star Market and “conducted a series of covert EBT trafficking operations” in March 2023.
A state investigator noted, “These undercover transactions confirmed the ongoing illegal exchange of SNAP benefits for cash.”
State detectives obtained a search warrant as a result.
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“One terminal was clearly marked ‘Food Only’ while a second had been used to facilitate illicit trafficking transactions,” according to the report. “This operational setup was consistent with the parallel bank accounts associated with Othman’s fraudulent banking activity.”
Othman Mohamad is charged with one count each of first-degree grand theft and fraudulent use of identification after her arrest.
She was being held on a $100,000 bond at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Thursday afternoon.
