Anti Skimming Unit Created To Combat Rise in EBT Thefts

A new team will be created at the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office to combat a rise in scamming that has drained public aid programs out of millions of dollars.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to establish the anti-skimming unit as losses continue to mount. This year alone, officials say around $39 million has already been scammed out of programs like CalFresh, CalWORKS and General Relief, putting taxpayers on the hook.

The thefts have been steadily increasing over the last three years. In 2021, around $950,000 was skimmed from the programs, with the number jumping to over $22.5 million in 2022, according to a motion put forward by L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis.

CalFresh is the federal program that provides benefits to low income households to purchase food items, while CalWORKS provides cash aid for eligible households with children. General Relief is a Los Angeles County program that provides aid to people or households who don't qualify for federal or state aid programs.

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According to Solis, thieves steal benefits through a “highly sophisticated process" in which they place a device on a card swiping machine to copy EBT card information.

“The people being most impacted are the most vulnerable,” she said. “Those are the ones that obtained general relief meaning they only receive $221 in a month, so that is wiped out for some of them.”

Investigative teams at the Department of Public Social Services can look into EBT skimming but they cannot make arrests. Creating a dedicated anti-skimming unit within the DA’s office can help prosecute offenders.

Staff at the El Monte DPSS office, Solis said, spend half their day reissuing EBT cards because of skimming.

“This is half their day, every single day, when they should instead be focusing on enrolling new people and other critical work that our employees need to do,” she said.

By next May, California is set to incorporate chips with tap technology on new EBT cards which are thought to enhance security.

In June, the state added an additional security feature on EBT cards, CVE numbers, those three digits at the back of a credit or debit cards used by financial institutions for fraud prevention.

California is set to spend an estimated $76.5 million on improving EBT cards with "enhanced security features."