Andy Robert Perovici

Introduction

Andy Robert Perovici, a 36-year-old man from Portland, Oregon, has pleaded guilty to federal charges for his role in a multi-state scheme that targeted public assistance recipients and caused more than $550,000 in losses to SNAP and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits in Oregon and Washington. Perovici admitted conspiracy to defraud the United States, unauthorized use of access devices, and aggravated identity theft, in a plea announced on November 4, 2026 by U.S. Attorney Scott E. Bradford. Forensic review of devices seized from him recovered the account numbers and PINs of hundreds of SNAP and TANF recipients, with a cumulative compromised value of approximately $554,215.

Background Information

EBT cards are the delivery mechanism for the country’s two largest anti-poverty programs — SNAP food benefits and TANF cash assistance — and they run on the same magnetic-stripe and PIN technology that payment cards abandoned years ago, which is what makes them the prime target for skimming crews. According to court documents, between April 2025 and November 2025, Perovici and his co-conspirators obtained stolen SNAP and EBT card numbers and PINs and used that information to withdraw cash, purchase goods, and access benefits without authorization. Skimming devices were installed at retail locations in Portland, Tigard, Lake Oswego, and Salem, Oregon — hardware that captures card data at the point of sale while the legitimate cardholder has no idea the account has been copied.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Pleaded guilty; sentencing pending. Perovici admitted conspiracy to defraud the United States, unauthorized use of access devices, and aggravated identity theft.

The scheme’s scale came from repetition: investigators determined that on multiple occasions — including August 1 and September 1, 2025 — Perovici used stolen EBT account information to make fraudulent withdrawals and purchases totaling thousands of dollars. He also possessed and trafficked device-making equipment, including skimming devices and other hardware used to capture and clone EBT card data, meaning the operation both harvested victim accounts and supplied the tools that harvested them. The forensic examination of his seized electronics laid out the blast radius: EBT account information and PINs associated with hundreds of SNAP and TANF recipients, with the cumulative value of the compromised accounts approximately $554,215 — losses borne by food-stamp and welfare households in Oregon and Washington.

Perovici pleaded guilty to the three counts that map the scheme — conspiracy to defraud the United States, unauthorized use of access devices, and aggravated identity theft — and the last of those carries a mandatory two-year prison term that must run consecutive to any other sentence imposed, a floor beneath whatever guidelines range the other counts produce. U.S. Attorney Bradford framed the prosecution around the victims: “Public assistance benefits are a lifeline for families who rely on them. Stealing from these programs harms some of the most vulnerable members of our communities. Today’s guilty plea reflects our commitment to holding accountable those who exploit federal benefits systems for personal gain.” The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General with assistance from federal and state partners, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Geoffrey A. Barrow and Nicholas D. Meyers.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The plea lands in a period of intensifying federal attention to EBT skimming, a crime wave that has emptied benefit cards across the country and forced states to scramble for replacement federal funds for stolen food assistance. The USDA OIG’s investigation, with its federal and state partners, built the case from the seized hardware outward — the skimmers at the four Oregon retail locations, the cloning equipment in Perovici’s possession, and the hundreds of harvested account-and-PIN pairs stored on his devices. The three-count plea, with its mandatory consecutive identity-theft term, gives prosecutors in the District of Oregon the template they have applied to other benefits-fraud crews: charge the conspiracy, the access devices, and the identity theft together.

Current Status

Perovici has pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing, where the aggravated identity theft count guarantees at least two years behind bars served consecutively to the sentence on the fraud and access-device counts, which together cover a scheme that compromised over half a million dollars in benefits across two states. The guilty plea resolves his criminal exposure as an admitted fact; the sentencing calculation remains open. The hundreds of SNAP and TANF households whose accounts and PINs sat in his devices’ storage are the case’s named casualties, and the USDA OIG investigation that reached him was built precisely to trace stolen benefits back to the people who monetized them.

Impact on Their Career/Life

At 36, Perovici has admitted a federal conspiracy, access-device fraud, and aggravated identity theft — a combination that will produce a multi-year prison term with the mandatory two-year consecutive add-on, followed by restitution-scale financial consequences and the permanent federal-felon record that governs employment and credit afterward. The evidence trail he left — cloned cards, skimming hardware, and a device library of hundreds of victims’ account credentials — is the same trail that convicted him, and the plea spares the hundreds of Oregon and Washington benefit households who would otherwise have been witnesses. His sentencing will put a number on the harm the U.S. Attorney’s announcement described: theft from the programs that feed and house the country’s poorest families.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Oregon, “Portland Man Pleads Guilty to Federal Conspiracy, Access Device Fraud and Aggravated Identity Theft,” November 4, 2026. source