59-year-old Rajan Babbar, an Indian-origin owner of a medium-sized grocery store in Lynchburg, Virginia, has pleaded guilty to one count of fraud involving the federal government's food stamp program SNAP and one count of transacting in criminally derived property. His store Taste of India was registered as a SNAP retailer in 2016, which means SNAP beneficiaries could get groceries from his store using their SNAP benefits, for which the store would get reimbursed by the government -- as the SNAP beneficiaries do not pay to the store.
Around April 2021, his SNAP sales exploded from the previous levels. Court documents said that in 2018, Taste of India was conducting an approximate monthly average of $2,600 in SNAP transactions. In 2018, Taste of India was conducting an approximate monthly average of $2,600 in SNAP transactions. By 2023, the approximate monthly average was $65,000 a month, a roughly 2,500 percent increase.
