HOUSTON – The rise in SNAP skimming cases has caught the attention of the top law enforcement agency that oversees financial crimes.
On Thursday, the United States Secret Service took KPRC 2 inside their investigation into skimming, including SNAP skimming.
READ: Houston nonprofit helps SNAP skimming victim after watching KPRC 2 story
SNAP is the largest food assistance program in the country. SNAP skimming is a crime when the information from a person’s SNAP card is “skimmed” by an electronic device at a cash register.
ASK 2: What is ‘SNAP skimming?’
Cases here in the Houston area and around the country are on the rise.
“There appears to be a recent uptick. However, it has always been a problem,” said U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Matthew Connolly. “I think it’s more prevalent now where we’re noticing it more. Point of sale overlay devices or deep insert ATM skimmers are a trend that’s catching on nationally.”
MORE INFO: ‘Buffet for fraudsters’: SNAP cards lack security measures to protect benefits, experts say
Over the past two years, more than $380 million in SNAP benefits were reported as stolen to the federal government.
In Texas, the number tops $15 million.
Understanding the threat of skimming
One swipe is all it takes for thieves to access your money.
Skimmers are designed to steal your card’s information while operating unnoticed.
The criminals behind the operation aren’t just looking for SNAP card information, but credit and debit card information, too.
When someone swipes a SNAP card on a credit card machine with a skimmer attached, the electronics inside steal the data.
Skimmers look real, they feel real and they operate like the real deal.
It’s the electronics on the underside, which you can’t see while checking out, that are the threat.
How skimmers operate
These skimming devices are placed over legitimate point-of-sale machines, allowing them to function normally while secretly saving card data.
“The card data, the track data on the back of the debit card or snap card used, will read by the machine, and then upon that person swiping their card at the device, they would enter their pin number, the personal identification number, it would be saved on this machine,” Special Agent Connolly said. “Later, the suspect would come back retrieve this and retrieve all that track data and pin numbers associated with those cards and information, recreate cards, and then go do the fraud with those recreated cards off that person’s information that they obtained.”
While these skimmers may only last a few days, they can steal tens of thousands of dollars before criminals return to collect the stolen data.
Experts suggest that many of these criminals are part of international organized crime groups.
“You are looking at massive transnational, organized criminal groups,” said Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions.
Gage Goulding: “Does that kind of track with what you’re seeing?
Special Agent Connolly: “A majority [of] the cases we have observed them being transnational.”
It’s happening here in Houston
The U.S. Secret Service has been busy finding skimmers already installed in stores, but also stopping crooks from even deploying the devices to victimize Houstonians.
“I can say that in 2024 and to the first quarter of 2025, Houston Police Department partnered with the Houston Secret Service Office here, We have stopped over 100 point of sale skimmers from being put into operation to victimize people,” Special Agent Connolly said. “In our numbers, we’re preventing about $10 million of prevented loss from happening.”
Since our initial report on SNAP skimming, dozens of your friends, family and neighbors have contacted 2 Helps You, sharing their story of being victimized by SNAP skimming.
Many of the victims have had their benefits stolen and used more than a thousand miles away in cities like New York and Chicago.
“When they compromise people’s information, if they’re here in Houston and they have to come back and grab this machine, that means that suspect is local,” Special Agent Connolly said. “That suspect can then share that compromised data with somebody in Illinois or in New York or in Chicago, give them that data and it’s reciprocated over here where they’re doing the same thing.”
Protecting your payment method
SNAP skimming has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $380 million over the last year and a half, according to data from the USDA.
To protect your card’s information, don’t be scared to check the credit card machine before you swipe or insert your card.
“I wouldn’t be embarrassed about it at all if someone walked up and gave a quick tug or a feel around the edges or base of any point of sale device to make sure that there’s nothing sitting over it that’s loose,” Special Agent Connolly told KPRC 2.
There are safer ways to use your credit or debit card.
SAFEST: Contactless payments (Apple Pay, tap to pay, etc.)
SAFER: EMV chip (insert your card to pay)
LEAST SAFE: Swipe to pay
SNAP cards across the country currently have the least amount of protection. Only California offers a SNAP card that has a EMV chip.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission, who oversees the Lone Star card, says they’re working on a chip SNAP card, but don’t have a timeline on when that might come out.
Gage Goulding: “If Texas were to have a chip in their SNAP card, would he cut down on a lot of this fraud?”
Special Agent Connolly: “I don’t think I can answer that.”
Gage Goulding: “Let me ask you this, are chip cards safer than mags swipes (magnetic swipe cards)?”
Special Agent Connolly: “Yes.”