Store raided in massive food stamp fraud investigation

Federal agents are raiding an Everett grocery store owned by a man detectives say is the mastermind of a massive food stamp card fraud ring.

EVERETT, Wash. — Both the owner of A-1 Smoke & Grocery and his brother were taken into custody during the Tuesday morning raid.

Authorities have been investigating the store owner for more than two years.

The raid is the result of a fraud investigation into the misuse of electronic benefits transfer cards – today’s equivalent of food stamps.

The store’s owner, Fraz Mushtaq, is known as Tony to his customers. Detectives told KIRO 7 that over the course of years, Mushtaq took EBT cards from hundreds of his customers and then went grocery shopping with those cards at Walmart, QFC and Safeway.

He would pay the EBT card customers 50 cents or less on the dollar with cash and then stock all of his store shelves with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of groceries, cigarettes and more -- all bought fraudulently with food stamp dollars meant to feed families, according to investigators.

Authorities are seizing all of Mushtaq's assets. They say he may have defrauded food stamp recipients for more than a million dollars.

Detectives told KIRO 7 reporter Gary Horcher that Mushtaq also sold illegal drugs at the store and at his Everett home.

KIRO 7 investigators have been working closely with Everett detectives on the probe for about a year and a half, but promised not to reveal the details until Tuesday’s raid.