BOSTON — Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday morning promoted a federal benefit-fraud case under the banner “TUESDAY TAKEDOWN,” posting a booking photo of a Lawrence, Massachusetts, woman and announcing that nine people had been charged in nearly $1 million in alleged fraud.
TUESDAY TAKEDOWN Nine individuals charged. Nearly $1 MILLION in alleged benefit fraud.Among them: Mercedes Soto Capellan, a Dominican national unlawfully residing in Massachusetts, who allegedly used a stolen identity to obtain approximately $65,521 in SNAP and… pic.twitter.com/1DMK5nzIHq
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) September 8, 2026
The charges are real and documented. They are also not new. The U.S. attorney’s office in Massachusetts announced the nine cases on March 26, noting they had been brought “over the past nine weeks,” and the woman Rollins named, Mercedes Orquidea Soto Capellan, 53, was arrested March 9 and indicted April 23, according to the federal docket in Boston.
“Nine individuals charged. Nearly $1 MILLION in alleged benefit fraud,” Rollins wrote in the post, which described Soto Capellan as “a Dominican national unlawfully residing in Massachusetts, who allegedly used a stolen identity to obtain approximately $65,521 in SNAP and MassHealth benefits.”…