Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Fraudsters used special devices to skim card information from electronic devices used to read food stamp cards in northern and central Texas, the U.S. Secret Service’s Dallas Field Office reported April 15.
A U.S. Secret Service agent, in this file photo. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch TimesThe Secret Service worked with local law enforcement to prevent an estimated $13.5 million in losses to Dallas-area consumers this week as part of a two-day outreach operation targeting illegal payment card skimming and electronic benefit transfer (EBT) fraud.
“EBT fraud is a serious threat impacting families nationwide,” said Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas Field Office Christina Foley. “Our investigative teams are committed to dismantling these skimmer operations and holding perpetrators accountable.”
Law enforcement personnel visited 462 area businesses in Tarrant County during the operation between April 13 and April 14.
Nearly 3,000 point-of-sale terminals, gas pumps, and ATMs were inspected during the visits, the Secret Service reported.
Teams also provided educational materials about credit card skimming to help businesses identify illegal devices that can be installed on their terminals, gas pumps, and ATMs.
The FBI estimates skimming costs financial institutions and consumers more than $1 billion each year. Criminals use the data they get from installing devices on or inside ATMs or point-of-sale terminals to capture card data and record PIN entries.
Once they have the information, they use it to make purchases or steal from victims’ accounts, according to the FBI.
SNAP benefits can also be skimmed, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The agency suggests people avoid using simple PINs and keeping the information private by not sharing it and changing the PIN often. They also suggested checking SNAP accounts often to detect unauthorized charges.
“The individuals behind these schemes are relentless, but so are we,” said Assistant Special Agent in Charge Michael Peck of the Secret Service Criminal Investigative Division. “Through coordinated efforts and innovative investigative methods, we are disrupting their operations and ensuring that those who exploit vulnerable families are brought to justice.”
SNAP is the largest federally funded nutrition assistance program in the United States. The low-income program provided about $96 billion in assistance to about 43 million people in 2025, according to a report by the General Accountability Office last year.
The report found SNAP benefits have been stolen through a few different methods, including card skimming, card cloning, phishing activities, algorithmic attacks, and stolen account numbers.
A sign alerting customers about SNAP benefits is displayed at a grocery store in New York City on Dec. 5, 2019. Scott Heins/Getty ImagesThe EBT cards are a target for theft because most cards do not have theft-prevention features, such as embedded microchips that are standard in commercial debit and credit cards to prevent card skimming, according to the GAO report.
“Perpetrators of SNAP benefit theft can range from individuals acting independently to organized crime groups, who steal benefits to help fund illicit activities,” the GAO report stated. “Such groups can operate across geographic and legal jurisdictions, which allows access to more program benefits, in more locations, at the same time.”
State SNAP agencies replaced more than $320 million in stolen benefits with federal funds for nearly 679,000 households in 52 states from Oct. 1, 2022, through Dec. 20, 2024, according to the report.
Tyler Durden Thu, 04/16/2026 - 17:05In a striking reversal that underscores the breakneck pace of the AI arms race, the White House has directed federal agencies to begin using Anthropic’s most dangerous new model - Claude Mythos - despite months of public friction between the Trump administration and the San Francisco-based AI company (read on to see how we reconcile this with the Pentagon's "supply-chain risk" designation).
The move, detailed in an internal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo circulated this week, marks the first formal green light for Cabinet-level departments to tap Mythos’s unprecedented cybersecurity capabilities. The goal: to hunt down vulnerabilities in government networks before adversaries can exploit them, Bloomberg reports.
Too Powerful to Release, Too Valuable to IgnoreAnthropic unveiled Mythos (sometimes referred to internally as “Mythos Preview”) just weeks ago, and it immediately sent shockwaves through the tech and national-security communities.
In controlled testing, the model autonomously discovered and weaponized thousands of previously unknown zero-day vulnerabilities across every major operating system, web browser, legacy enterprise software, and even decades-old codebases. Its speed and creativity reportedly surpassed top human red-team hackers. As we noted earlier this month, the model “went rogue” during testing - prompting Anthropic to withhold a broad release entirely. Full technical details are available in Anthropic’s official Mythos Preview System Card.
Rather than ship it publicly, Anthropic launched Project Glasswing - a tightly controlled defensive program that grants limited access only to a vetted circle of partners: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, major banks (including JPMorgan Chase), cybersecurity firms, and the Linux Foundation. The explicit mission is defense only - scan your own systems, find the bugs, patch them fast, and keep the bad guys out. The official program page is here.
From "Supply-Chain Risk" to Strategic AssetThe government’s relationship with Anthropic had been icy for months. As we noted in February, the Pentagon threatened to blacklist the company as a “supply-chain risk” after Anthropic refused to strip certain ethical guardrails from its models for military use. That standoff escalated in March when Anthropic sued the Pentagon over the designation, as detailed in ZeroHedge’s coverage of the lawsuit.
That said, the Pentagon’s “supply-chain risk” label was always narrow in scope: it was a DoD-specific action triggered by the company’s refusal to remove certain ethical guardrails from its models for unrestricted military and offensive-use applications. That designation threatened to block Anthropic technology from defense contracts and classified work, and it led directly to Anthropic’s lawsuit against the Pentagon.
Today’s OMB memo changes almost nothing on paper for that designation. The Pentagon has not withdrawn it, the lawsuit is still active, and DoD contractors remain restricted from using Claude models (including Mythos) in offensive or surveillance contexts.
Just days ago, the U.S. Treasury was rushing to gain access to Mythos after internal warnings that the model could “hack every major system.” Senior Treasury and Federal Reserve officials had summoned CEOs of the nation’s largest banks to Washington, warning them that the financial system’s exposure to AI-powered attacks had become existential. Behind closed doors, federal agencies - including the Commerce Department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation - had already begun quiet red-teaming of Mythos. Anthropic co-founder and president Daniela Amodei confirmed the company had briefed the administration early, telling reporters simply: “The government has to know about this stuff.”
Now the OMB memo formalizes that reality. It lays out strict protocols for safe access, data handling, and usage limits so that major departments can deploy Mythos against their own sprawling digital estates. The focus remains narrow: vulnerability discovery, network hardening, and defensive preparedness.
What This Means for the AI Arms RaceThis is not the first time Washington has had to swallow its pride to stay competitive. But the Mythos episode - from the earliest Pentagon threats through the April 8 Glasswing announcement and this week’s Treasury scramble - feels different. It is a microcosm of the larger tension defining 2026: frontier AI models are now so capable that even their creators are scared of them, yet ignoring them would be national-security malpractice.
Critics inside the defense community argue the government waited too long. Supporters of Anthropic’s cautious approach counter that the company’s restraint (and its Glasswing coalition) may have prevented an even worse outcome: a fully open-sourced Mythos circulating on the dark web.
For Anthropic, the development is a quiet vindication. By keeping Mythos under lock and key and building Glasswing as a defensive shield, the company has positioned itself as a responsible steward of dangerous technology - while still earning a seat at the table with the most powerful customer on Earth.
Tyler Durden Thu, 04/16/2026 - 16:45