3,000 SNAP benefits recipients became victims of a skimming scheme at North Texas stores
NORTH TEXAS — Charging documents for three North Texas store owners reveal a conspiracy to steal money from the needy and disabled depending on government assistance.
Charging documents from the U.S. Attorney's Office Northern District of Texas said Saybah Keihn, Margretta Jabbeh, and James Peabody ran a multi-million dollar scam from three North Texas African stores.
Federal prosecutors said the three bilked $2.6 million from 3,000 SNAP recipients across the country. Per the documents, the victims are from California, Texas, Oregon, Maryland, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York.
Investigators said the three used skimmers to steal information from the victims' Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) card. The government benefits are for food; investigators say 'no groceries' were purchased. Agents said the cards got swiped with no actual transactions.
Saybah's African Market in Bedford, Leelah African Store in Blue Mound, and Afro Mart in North Richland Hills were under investigation.
Records reveal after Afro Mart opened in July 2022, approximately 96 percent of the transactions came from SNAP victims outside of Texas.
Those documents said Leelah's African Store received 90 percent of its SNAP transactions from victims who didn't live in Texas.
Court documents also show the plan was hatched when Peabody, Jabbeh, and Keihn went out for dinner in early 2022. According to prosecutors, the group was to keep the businesses open for up to four months.
Isaac Mulbah is a co-owner at Leelah's. He said Jabbeh was his former fiance.
"I was working and I didn't know what she was doing. Then, I got a phone call that she got arrested," Mulbah said.
He said the store is still open, and customers are buying products. But Mulbah is changing the name to distance the business and its future from the criminal scheme.
"It will help clear the memory of that African store was like that," he said.
Peabody is serving a 20-year sentence. Jabbeh and he received nearly eleven and nine years, respectively.