Sixteen people were charged with defrauding Californians out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of EBT benefits by allegedly getting their account info, then putting that info on fake EBT cards.
Sixteen people have been charged in an alleged massive electronic benefit transfer fraud scheme in which funds were siphoned off that were intended for families in need, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced Tuesday.
Prosecutors say the case involves the theft of private account information of California EBT card holders, the creation of illegal, cloned cards with victims' account information and the withdrawal of large cash amounts from those accounts at ATMs. That left legitimate cardholders without funds in their accounts when they would later try to make purchases, according to the District Attorney's Office.