From The Inside Looking Out | Texas | SNAP and Identity Theft Fraud

On January 6, 2025, the Texas Attorney General’s Office announced a data breach that impacted 61,104 account holders who had either applied for or received assistance between June 2021 and December 2024 from the state’s programs supporting food stamp benefits. Thanks to a private contractor who alerted the agency officials of the suspicious activity, suspicious activity that appears to be coming from within the SNAP program itself. In the past year, seven state employees have been fired in separate cases for improperly accessing, and in some cases stealing money from, accounts of thousands of Texans who receive Medicaid, food stamps, and other public assistance.

Four of those employees were fired in December 2024 in what is believed to be the largest data breach in the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s history. These now ex-employees apparently accessed the personal account information of 61,104 Texans without a clear business reason to do so. In separate cases earlier in 2024, one employee was fired after officials said she illegally possessed information on the public assistance accounts of 3,392 people and another two were fired after $270,000 was stolen from some 500 food stamp accounts. The office has referred those three individuals to the local district attorney’s offices for prosecution.

What appears to be the problem is that HHS has been fighting the good fight, from the inside looking out. Texas’ entire infrastructure for investigating fraud in public assistance programs was built to focus on nefarious activities from outsiders. However, about 8,386 of the 9,500 staffers who work in the agency’s eligibility services division have access to personal account information – data that includes dates of birth, home addresses, income, and health information of people enrolled in various public assistance programs. Unfortunately, while it conducts internal affairs investigations of employees, the office has not monitored various state databases daily to check whether state employees are properly handling data. Soon to change.

Shout out to Texas Health and Human Services Commission who are constantly fighting the fraudster, from inside and out.

Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “State employees suspected of stealing from low-income Texans’ public assistance accounts” published by The Texas Tribune on January 17, 2025.

Seven state employees have been fired for improperly accessing — and in some cases, stealing money from — accounts of thousands of Texans who receive Medicaid, food stamps and other public assistance, The Texas Tribune has confirmed.

Four of those employees were fired in December in what is believed to be the largest data breach in the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s history after officials say they had accessed the personal account information of 61,104 Texans without a clear business reason.