Black market sells food from NY fraud, nypost.com reports

Santo Domingo.- New Yorkers on welfare buy food with their benefit cards and shipping it in blue barrels to poor relatives in the Caribbean, including Dominican Republic, nypost.com reports “But not everyone is giving the taxpayer-funded fare to starving children abroad. The Post last week found two people hawking barrels of American products for a profit on the streets of Santiago.”

“It’s a really easy way to make money, and it doesn’t cost me anything,” a seller named Maria-Teresa said Friday.

It said it traced the food route to the Dominican city of Santiago, where barrels shipped from NYC and stuffed with welfare food are sold, “as part of a thriving black market.”

The NYC outlet said a Bronx native revealed how she scalps barrels of Frosted Flakes and baby formula bought with welfare money in the U.S. “Maria-Teresa said she gets new barrels every few weeks from her sister, who buys everything at a Western Beef on Prospect Avenue near East 165th Street in Foxhurst.”

It said scammers pay US$75 per barrel to transport the items to the DR through Mott Haven’s Luciano Shipping. “Sometimes the family fraudsters take advantage of a special: three barrels for the price of two.”