Mercedes New, known online as "Shawty Dred," was arrested in Las Vegas on October 13 in connection with $4.4 million in unauthorized SNAP account transactions. He was a rapper, social media influencer and adult content creator. He also stole millions in food stamp benefits that weren't his.
He was one of more than 40 defendants.
Vice President JD Vance, who chairs the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, announced on October 21 that the Trump DOJ had uncovered nearly $42 million in SNAP fraud as part of a nationwide crackdown spanning 13 U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the Utah Attorney General's Office. The operation ran from September 1 through October 21, 2026, and the intended losses across SNAP and related programs totaled $45 million.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said, "These schemes literally take food from children." Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins added that the administration intends to prosecute fraud "to the fullest extent of the law." The USDA Office of Inspector General partnered with DOJ on the investigation.
The single largest case involved two defendants who allegedly ran bogus EBT transactions worth $29.7 million — and used the proceeds to buy vehicles overseas. A separate scheme involved trafficking more than 124,000 pounds of infant formula across state lines for black-market resale, with an estimated value of $2.4 million. Another ring used over 500 stolen Georgia EBT cards to drain accounts.
The standard objection writes itself: this is a tiny fraction of total SNAP spending, so why the big announcement? Because $42 million is what one coordinated operation found in less than two months. The question isn't whether the number is large enough to matter. The question is what the number looks like when nobody's looking — which, until this administration, was the default setting.
SNAP fraud prosecutions have historically been treated as low-priority white noise — too small for federal attention, too diffuse for state attorneys general to chase. The Trump DOJ just demonstrated what happens when the federal government decides the money is worth recovering. Thirteen U.S. Attorneys' Offices working in parallel, plus a state AG, plus the USDA Inspector General. That's not a press release. That's infrastructure.
Forty defendants. Thirteen offices. $42 million in seven weeks. The task force is called "Eliminate Fraud," not "Study Fraud" or "Discuss Fraud at a Later Date."