Pennsylvania’s attorney general has charged a McCandless couple with running an “elaborate scheme” to illegally buy food stamps at a cut rate, use them to purchase nearly $180,000 in food from area stores, then resell the items at their Pittsburgh deli and restaurant.
Rachna Anwar, 46, and her husband, Munir Mohammad Chaudhri, 62, used 453 Electronic Benefit Transfer cards belonging to other people on hundreds of transactions since 2021, authorities said.
The couple bought and resold everything from CoffeeMate French vanilla creamer, DiRusso’s Italian-style meatballs and Member’s Mark breaded mozzarella sticks to 2-liter bottles of Pepsi and cases of Aquafina water and Gatorade, according to a detailed criminal complaint. The list of resold items spans two of the complaint’s 16 pages.
Items from more than 800 purchases went from Sam’s Club and Giant Eagle shelves to the two businesses the couple owns on Pittsburgh’s North Side, Lillen’s Restaurant and a deli next door, according to a criminal complaint.
The couple ran the operation, in part, by offering people cash in exchange for their EBT card.
Those cards are part of a national electronic system that allows welfare departments to issue benefits through magnetically encoded, debit-style cards.
A former deli and Sam’s Club employee helped the couple by manning a cash register while they made their illicit buys and making purchases himself for the fencing operation, the complaint said.
TribLive is not identifying the employee because he has not been charged.
Attorney General Dave Sunday charged Anwar and Chaudhri on Monday with eight criminal counts, including running a corrupt organization, buying or exchanging federal food-order coupons and conspiracy to commit illegal acts.
Authorities on Tuesday said they were arranging the couple’s surrender.
“These defendants intentionally manipulated a system designed to help underserved residents — all to increase profits at their businesses,” Sunday said in a prepared statement. “Investigators sifted through hundreds of transactions to uncover the scheme and filed very serious charges.”
Anwar and Chaudhri, if found guilty, could each face up to 20 years in prison on the most serious charges, Brett Hambright, a spokesman for the AG’s office, told TribLive.
Bought from ‘drug addicts’
Authorities said the operation dates back to at least 2021 and accounts for $178,289 worth of goods, mostly food items.
The Attorney General’s Office launched its investigation last January after receiving a report about “suspected fraud” at Sam’s Club, Hambright said.
Purchases were made at several stores, including a Sam’s Club in Ohio Township and a Giant Eagle supermarket just four blocks from the couple’s businesses in the city’s East Allegheny neighborhood.
The former employee, who worked as a delivery driver at the couple’s restaurant from 2023 to last year, said Chaudhri would buy EBT cards from “drug addicts” for half of the card’s balance, authorities said.
Chaudhri would check the balances of each card in his wife’s deli next door, then pay individuals for the cards with cash, according to investigators.
One person who told authorities he sold his EBT card to the couple learned about Anwar and Chaudhri “through word of mouth,” according to the complaint. A “money jam” led him to sell his food-stamp benefits at least four times.
Authorities found the man’s benefits card in one of the couple’s businesses.
The man told authorities he would leave his card with Anwar and return monthly for cash payments, often half of the EBT card’s balance, the complaint said.
In October, he tried to get back his EBT card because his benefits “were being cut off,” but he said the couple refused to return it to him.
Another witness, an employee, told authorities she saw Anwar handle the EBT cards and would check their balances at her deli by “ringing up an inexpensive item,” according to the complaint. Anwar also used another employee’s EBT card.
The witness told authorities the couple was “very secretive” and often did not speak in English around her, the complaint said. She told officers “she was not surprised to see law enforcement at the locations.”
Stacks of cash
Authorities found thousands of dollars in cash when they searched the couple’s Peebles Road home in October.
Currency was found throughout the house — $80,503 in a black safe, $789 on a TV stand and $356 in one closet, the complaint said. More than $1,400 in cash was found on a computer stand; below the stand, authorities found $853 more.
A cache of EBT cards was found in a black bag on the floor, authorities said. Bank statements and W-2 forms were collected in envelopes on the dining room table.
Around 8 a.m. on that same day, eight special agents and multiple Pittsburgh police officers searched the deli shop and restaurant on East Ohio Street.
They found 24 EBT cards near the deli’s meat slicer and dozens of fenced goods, including three loaves of Sara Lee honey wheat bread, Otis Spunkmeyer muffins and Monster energy drinks. Authorities found items that ranged from ramen soup to cases of Sauder’s large white eggs.
Chaudri’s blue-colored iPhone also became evidence in the case, the complaint said. The device contained at least 41 photographs of receipts from Tom Friday’s Market, a North Side grocery store.
The receipts, which topped $11,000 and spanned from August 2024 to October 2025, corroborated witness statements about the couple sending employees to buy goods at other stores, authorities said.
Controlled buys
The Attorney General’s Office fleshed out its case by making controlled buys at the deli and scouring surveillance-camera footage.
Cameras inside a Giant Eagle supermarket in McIntyre Square, a North Hills shopping center, showed Anwar using her Giant Eagle Advantage card to buy food as part of the scheme, the complaint said.
One of Anwar’s three Giant Eagle accounts showed 65 separate transactions in a year, the complaint said. She used at least 53 different EBT cards on those purchases, according to investigators.
Authorities said Anwar made nearly $10,000 in purchases through Giant Eagle — including bunches of bananas, a 5-pound bag of clementines and loaves of rye, wheat and white bread.
Around 1 p.m. March 12, a special agent made a controlled buy at Anwar’s deli, in an effort to verify she was selling the fenced goods, the complaint said.
He bought one Monster energy drink for $3.95 and one Otis Spunkmeyer muffin for $1.99, the complaint said.
Authorities said the two items had been purchased a day earlier from Sam’s Club using four different EBT cards.
City cameras captured the buy, authorities said.
