WAFB 9 News Baton Rouge, Louisiana News, Weather, SportsStopping food stamp fraud

It's a problem that can cost us all millions of dollars - food stamp benefit fraud.  Believe it or not, Louisiana is leading the way to stop it.

Inside a small room at the Department of Children and Family Services, 9 News was given exclusive access to a high-tech piece of equipment.

Dots on the screen there represent all of the thousands of people in the Baton Rouge area who get food stamps - taxpayer money loaded on Louisiana Purchase cards to be used for food.  But it doesn't always go that way.

"What used to take months, we can now do in a matter of minutes," said Trey Williams with DCFS.

Using the tool, the state can track exactly where each person is using their card, exactly how much they spend and exactly whose card is being used.

"We're not Big Brother sitting there and constantly monitoring where you're purchasing and what you're purchasing - what we're doing is looking at patterns, overall patterns," said Williams.

"What do you say to the person who is a food stamp recipient and the think that you're tracking their every move and they say, "Hey, this is an invasion of my privacy?" asked Greg Meriwether

"Well it's not," explained Williams. "They're receiving public benefits and so we have every ability to go in and see how they are spending that money."

Here's an example - a man, who lives close to WAFB and uses his card several times each day at a nearby gas station.  The state tracks purchases like this, because if all of a sudden, someone who lives here's card ends up being used in, say Shreveport, over and over, and that person still lives in Baton Rouge, that raises a red flag and could point to fraud.  And that happens more often than you might expect.

"Well we see red flags pop up every day. Some of them are legitimate purchases that just fall into the parameters of what we set," said Williams.

Sometimes people sell their cards for cash, which is illegal.  This system can go a long way in the direction of tracking that.

In cases of fraud, the people are usually arrested, but rarely face any serious jail time - they are usually forced to pay the state back.

"For some reason all of their purchases are being made at a store 20-25 miles away from where they lived.  That might be a red flag - we don't want to give too many secrets away - but we look at several things," said Williams.

Last year alone, the tracking system recovered $3 million.

Click here to report food stamp fraud.

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