Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts announced charges on Tuesday against four people accused of using 115 stolen identities to secure more than $1 million in benefits from two federal aid programs, according to court filings and statements from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Officials said the defendants allegedly used the pilfered identities to obtain Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - SNAP - benefits in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Prosecutors contend those benefits were used to purchase large quantities of chicken, beef, pork and other bulk food items for a restaurant owned by one of the defendants.
At a press conference in Boston, U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said the scheme produced roughly $440,000 in SNAP benefits obtained fraudulently from 2023 to 2025. She noted that SNAP benefits are administered by states.
"[T]he extraordinary amount of benefit fraud we are seeing across the country" and this case is "just a snapshot of the bigger picture," Foley said. "It is no secret that there is rampant fraud across this nation."
Prosecutors also said the defendants inflated their take by submitting fraudulent applications for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a program that provided emergency jobless benefits during the pandemic. The filings allege more than $700,000 in improper PUA payments resulted from claims made in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada between 2020 and 2021.
The four charged individuals are identified in court records as:
- Raul Fernandez Vicioso - a naturalized U.S. citizen from the Dominican Republic who owned El Primo Restaurant in Leominster, Massachusetts. Court records indicate he has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges.
- Joel Vicioso Fernandez - a lawful permanent resident from the Dominican Republic.
- Roman Vequiz Fernandez - a cousin of Joel, identified as a Venezuelan who previously had temporary protected status but no longer has lawful status.
- Coralba Albarracin Siniva - another cousin, also a Venezuelan who previously held temporary protected status but no longer has lawful status. A lawyer for Albarracin said she will plead not guilty.
The other defendants were arrested and face fraud-related charges filed in federal court in Worcester, Massachusetts. Court records and local prosecutors indicate that attorneys for the remaining defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Prosecutors said the current case follows prior enforcement activity by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts. In December, Foley charged two store owners in what prosecutors described as a separate $7 million SNAP trafficking scheme in the state. During that earlier announcement, Foley criticized several Democratic-led states, including Massachusetts, for declining to provide the U.S. Department of Agriculture with certain SNAP recipient data - including names and immigration status.
Massachusetts, which received over $2.6 billion in SNAP benefits from the USDA in fiscal year 2025, has resisted the federal administration's threats to withhold SNAP funding from states that do not share that information. State officials and Democratic leaders have argued that supplying such data could be used for immigration enforcement, a concern Foley raised in discussing federal enforcement priorities.
This matter remains before the courts as prosecutions proceed and at least one defendant has indicated an intention to plead guilty while another intends to plead not guilty.