Police in Lexington said they have arrested two people in a scheme in which people were selling EBT cards for bath salts.
Outside Six Brothers Market on West Sixth Street, undercover police arrested Mohamad Kadah. Police say his family runs the store and another around the corner where customers line up before business hours to buy synthetic meth, marketed as bath salts. Investigators say the salts, which are illegal and dangerous, are selling like crazy in businesses like these because of the cocaine methamphetamine like “high” they give people.
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And, as it turns out, taxpayers are paying for the alleged scheme. During a raid of Six Brothers, police found 32 EBT cards, which are food stamp cards with pin numbers belonging to 32 different people. Police suspect some of the cards were traded for bath salts or sold to the merchant for fast cash.
Another man, Bahjat Amira, a clerk, was arrested and charged with welfare fraud and selling the illegal bath salts.
Police say it is a growing problem, merchants paying cash for a fraction of the card’s value then using the welfare recipient’s pin number to buy hundreds of dollars of supplies for their store.
