Leticia Mariscal seemed to have hit on a nearly foolproof scam.
She worked for the Department of Social Services of Madera County, California, where she handled food stamp cases.
For more than four years, starting in late 2020, she would scour the county’s databases for elderly or deceased people, approve their benefit claims, print EBT cards in their names and use them for personal purchases. She found noncitizens to be particularly enticing targets. She called to ask pointedly about immigration records, figuring she would scare them into forgoing benefits and then grab them for herself…