Atlanta meat market owner pleads guilty to $10M SNAP scheme

ATLANTA - Uttam Halder, the former owner of Big Daddy's Discount Meat in Atlanta, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a $10 million scheme involving the illegal purchase of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from low-income recipients.

After his initial arrest, Halder fled to Istanbul. However, foreign authorities successfully apprehended him.

The details of the case, as presented by U.S. Attorney Buchanan, revealed that Halder enrolled his store, Big Daddy's Discount Meat, as a retailer for the USDA's SNAP in 2014. SNAP provides benefits on Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, intended to alleviate hunger among low-income families by enabling them to purchase eligible food items.

Between 2015 and 2020, Halder loaned his EBT terminals to two other stores, Food World and Big Brother Mini Supermarket, in violation of SNAP rules. Co-conspirators, including Paltu Roy, operator of Big Brother Mini Supermarket, made cash payments to customers in exchange for redeeming their SNAP benefits at a rate of roughly 50 cents on the dollar, totaling over $10 million in fraudulent redemptions of SNAP benefits over six years.

Halder was initially arrested in January 2021 but was released on bond. In defiance of his bond conditions, he became a fugitive in late 2022. It was in June 2023 when foreign authorities in Turkey discovered Halder attempting to enter Istanbul from Cancun, Mexico, using a fake passport. He was promptly returned to the United States and taken into custody.

Halder, 42, of Decatur pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of failure to appear. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 30, 2024, before U.S. District Court Judge Michael L. Brown.

Halder's co-conspirator, Paltu Roy, 51, of Stone Mountain, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud on Dec. 9, 2021. Judge Brown sentenced Roy on April 20, 2022, to three years and one month in prison, three years of supervised release, and a special assessment of $100, and ordered him to pay $3,071,235 in restitution to the USDA.

This investigation was a joint effort by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, and Homeland Security Investigations, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan P. Kitchens prosecuting the case.