ATLANTA — A former Atlanta meat market owner and federal fugitive was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison after committing a multimillion-dollar Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program fraud.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Uttar Halder was sentenced Tuesday, after pleading guilty to the fraud in September.
Following his arrest in 2021, Halder tried to leave the country, traveling to Mexico before fleeing to Istanbul, Turkey, where he was later arrested, according to USDOJ.
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The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Halder diverted about $10 million in a scheme to defraud SNAP, known as the federal food stamp program.
Officials said Halder was buying SNAP benefits from low-income recipients.
U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said evidence presented in court showed Halder had owned and operated a meat market in Atlanta called Big Daddy’s Discount Meat. He enrolled the store as a retailer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s SNAP program back in 2014.
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For five years, from 2015 to 2020, Halder “loaned his EBT terminals to two stores, Food World and Big Brother Mini Supermarket,” which is against SNAP rules, according to the Justice Department.
Two co-conspirators, Paltu Roy who operated Big Brother Mini Supermarket and another at Food World, agreed to share profits with Halder from using Big Daddy’s terminals illegally at their stores, USDOJ said. Then, the stores made cash payments to customers in return for redeeming their SNAP benefits at a rate of $0.50 per dollar.
After his arrest in 2021, Halder was released on bond. He then violated the conditions of his bond and fled the country, becoming a fugitive in late 2022.
In June 2023, foreign authorities found him in Turkey when he tried to enter Istanbul from Cancun, Mexico with a fake passport, and he was returned to the U.S. and placed in custody.
In Sept., Halder pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of failing to appear in court.
Roy, his co-conspirator, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in December 2021. He was sentenced in April 2022 to three years and one month in prison, followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay more than $3 million in restitution to the USDA.
Halder was sentenced to more than five and a half years in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay more than $10.3 million in restitution, according to officials.
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