OC food truck at center of intricate SNAP fraud scheme busted by feds

The owner of a Southern California food truck was arrested recently for illegally processing an unusually large amount of food stamp transactions, according to photos and a criminal complaint obtained by The California Post.It comes as the state contends with SNAP fraud estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars.Investigators had been snooping around food truck Soriano Produce, owned by Esmeralda Soriano, which primarily operates out of Lyon Street in Santa Ana and sells fruit and produce on a “low volume.” It started accepting SNAP and EBT benefits in May 2023, according to the complaint.Through undercover operations and surveillance, an officer discovered that the truck had a countertop checkout area that had food and non-food items.

One can use SNAP to purchase food items, but non-food items such as houseware and toiletry are ineligible.Dwight Llewellyn, an agent for Homeland Security Investigations, said the food truck had one device to process all food stamp transactions, but the record of transactions appeared sketchy.“Based on my training and experience, the lack of scanners, coupled with consistent high dollar transactions, and rapid back-to-back transactions, are indicators of possible fraud,” he said in the complaint.The amount of SNAP money redeemed by Soriano compared to other nearby, similar vendors was also suspiciously large, the complaint said.Soriano Produce has one register, an average purchase amount of $151.41, and store dollar volume totaling $640,924.On the other hand, three other vendors nearby had an average purchase amount of below $55 and totals less than $100,000 from April 2025 to April 2026.

In fact, Soriano made more EBT money than full-blown supermarkets and grocery stores, the complaint calculated.In May of this year, undercover officers were able to trade $100 in SNAP for $50 in cash, they said.Soriano reportedly told the officer, “If you come back, don’t ask my husband because he would not do it.”Undercover ...