Late last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced food stamp fraud charges against 74-year-old Antonio Bonheur, a naturalized United States citizen from Haiti, and 21-year-old Saul Alisme, a legal immigrant from Haiti who was issued a Social Security card in November 2024.
According to an indictment, Bonheur owned Jesula Variety Store, and Alisme owned Saul Mache Mixe Store — both of which stores accepted food stamps.
Investigators first started probing the small variety stores in Boston after they seemingly began redeeming huge sums of food stamps. The duo, the indictment alleges, trafficked millions in food stamp benefits over a relatively short period of time.
“Both stores were conducting numerous transactions for over $95 in a single day, and hundreds of such transactions per month, totaling over $30,000 per month for SAUL MACHIE MIXE and over $300,000 for JESULA VARIETY STORE,” the indictment alleges:
Additionally, it would be extremely difficult for JESULA VARIETY STORE and SAUL MACHE MIXE STORE to conduct legitimate transactions commensurate with the amount of SNAP Benefits being redeemed at the stores. For example, JESULA VARIETY STORE and SAUL MACHE MIXE STORE do not have carriages, or handbaskets for their customers. Both stores only have one register and no optical scanners to read barcodes from products. Additionally, JESULA VARIETY STORE and SAUL MACHE MIXE STORE are very small, and as documented below during store visits and the undercover transactions, the stores stock very limited quantities of food that would be eligible to be purchased with SNAP Benefits. [Emphasis added]
In short, the investigation thus far has revealed that ANTONIO BONHEUR, through his store JESULA VARIETY STORE (“JVS”), has trafficked SNAP Benefits valued over $6,000,000 over a period of more than three years. SAUL ALISME, through his store SAUL MACHE MIXE STORE (“SMMS”), has been trafficking in SNAP Benefits from May 2025, and is believed to have trafficked over $121,890 in SNAP Benefits. JVS and SMMS are located in the same building at 1549 Blue Hill Avenue, Mattapan, MA. [Emphasis added]
In addition to the alleged food stamp fraud scheme, the Haitian immigrants were allegedly selling processed food packages that had been produced by the nonprofit Feed My Starving Children, which were donated and not lawful to be sold. The indictment alleges:
Salisbury has the same fraud problem by Haitians……