Date: April 30, 2025
Contact: [email protected]
CHICAGO 〞 A federal jury has convicted the owner of several Chicago-area convenience stores of scheming to defraud a low-income food program for women and children.
Hassan Abdellatif, also known as ※Eric,§ of Chicago, was convicted of all five counts against him, including two counts of wire fraud, one count of fraudulently obtaining government benefits, and two counts of willfully failing to file corporate tax returns. The jury returned its verdicts on Monday after a week-long trial in federal court in Chicago. U.S. District Judge Jorge L. Alonso set sentencing for Aug. 26, 2025.
Evidence at trial revealed that Abdellatif, who owned or operated El Milagro Mini Market, Supermercado El Grande, Star Mini Market, In & Out Grocery, and Harding Grocery, schemed with eight other store owners or workers to fraudulently redeem checks from the Women, Infants, and Children (※WIC§) program, a federally funded initiative designed to provide a nutritious diet to moderate and low-income infants, children up to five years of age, and pregnant, breastfeeding, and post-partum women. Over a period of several years, Abdellatif and the others knowingly allowed customers to provide their WIC checks as payment for ineligible items at the stores, often at inflated prices. Abdellatif and a co-defendant redeemed more than $6.5 million in WIC checks at two of the stores alone, before law enforcement searched those premises and shut down the fraud scheme.
The evidence established that 10 stores involved in the scheme redeemed more than $19 million in WIC checks over an eight-year period. All eight of Abdellatif＊s co-defendants pleaded guilty prior to his trial.
The convictions were announced by Andrew S. Boutros, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Ramsey E. Covington, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in Chicago, Douglas S. DePodesta, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI, and Shantel R. Robinson, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Midwest Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kartik Raman, Rick Young, and Matthew Moyer.
IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attach谷 posts abroad.