Chicago area store owner given 4-year sentence in WIC fraud sceme

A federal judge just slammed the door on yet another welfare fraud scheme that preyed on the very people the program was meant to help.

Hassan Abdellatif, the owner of several Chicago-area convenience stores, has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for his role in ripping off the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program. This federally funded initiative is supposed to deliver nutritious food to low-income kids, pregnant women, breastfeeding moms, and those in the post-partum phase. Instead, Abdellatif and his crew turned it into a cash cow.

From 2010 to 2018, Abdellatif allegedly teamed up with eight other convenience store owners or workers across the Chicago area to fraudulently redeem WIC checks. They knowingly let customers use those checks to buy ineligible items, often jacking up the prices in the process. In total, the ten stores wrapped up in this racket redeemed more than $19 million in WIC benefits.

A federal jury convicted the 37-year-old Chicago resident on all five counts last year: two counts of wire fraud, one count of fraudulently obtaining government benefits, and two counts of willfully failing to file corporate tax returns. 

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jorge L. Alonso handed down the four-year prison term and ordered Abdellatif to cough up more than $8.8 million in restitution to the government.

As Assistant U.S. Attorney Raman laid out in the government's sentencing memorandum, "Hassan Abdellatif and his co-schemers engaged in conduct that was extremely serious, complex, and wide-ranging in scope." Raman added, "Vulnerable communities are impacted when individuals steal from those programs."

This is the kind of brazen abuse that hits hardest at the people who can least afford it. Programs like WIC exist to support families in need, not to line the pockets of schemers who game the system for years. Four years behind bars and millions in restitution might be a start toward justice, but it won't undo the damage done to those vulnerable communities.

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