It's Hard Out Here For A Bodega

It was announced yesterday that feds have uncovered an [$8 million food stamp scam] in which eight bodega owners and employees allegedly pocketed the cash for themselves, the New York Post reports. Armed with food stamps, wired informants visited stores in Manhattan, the Bronx and Westchester with “suspiciously high numbers of food-stamp redemptions” over the last seven months. What they found, may shock you: Shopkeepers were repeatedly keeping much of the money that should have been given to customers for themselves. Now it’s one thing to be ripped off by the government, one thing to be ripped off by a corporation, but by yee old, little bodega? That’s just wrong.

Photo courtesy of [moriza on Flickr]