HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — An investigation is underway after more than $81,000 in authorized charges were made on hundreds of Lone Star cards. ABC13 obtained a warrant that named a state employee as one of the suspects.
Eyewitness News isn’t naming the employee or her alleged co-conspirator since neither has been charged with a crime at this point.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Office of Inspector General began investigating in January following an anonymous call to the state’s SNAP fraud hotline.
The tipster told them a Health and Human Services employee was stealing SNAP card information and selling it on Facebook and Instagram.
Investigators later found the employee, who works at the Health and Human Services office on West Little York in Acres Homes, had changed the PINs on 211 Lone Star cards from across the state, preventing the rightful owners from using them.
They say another woman who used to work in the same office before being fired in 2018 for unspecified reasons worked with the first woman and changed 157 PINs.
The women are then accused of making unauthorized charges on the cards and selling them to third parties.
In July, investigators say the first woman confessed to her part in the scheme. She allegedly told investigators the second woman paid her 50 cents for each dollar of stolen SNAP benefits.
Investigators say she claimed she did it to pay for her late son’s funeral.
A search warrant on the woman’s phone suggests the scheme could have been going on as far back as June 2023. Investigators say she told them it didn’t begin until November 2023.
When Eyewitness News contacted both women named in the search warrant for comment, the second woman claimed she wasn’t aware of the investigation’s existence.
Eyewitness News has also asked the Health and Human Services Commission if the first woman is still employed, and we’re waiting to hear back.
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