A father and his son were arrested Monday for an alleged food stamp scam, which they allegedly using taxpayer's money to stock their own shelves.

Police told the Daytona-Beach News Journal that Bassam Sale Abu Diab, 55, and his son, Matthew Bassam Abu Diab, 22, bought EBT cards at deeply discounted prices from customers at their convience store in Daytona Beach Fla. They allegedly would turn around and used those credits to buy goods for their shop, 4M Food Mart.

The Diab's allegedly made at least $88,000 through EBT transactions at the store, according to the News Journal. EBT is an electronic system that allows state welfare departments to issue benefits via a magnetically encoded payment card, which can be used for food and drinks, just no alcohol.

It was a three month investigation that led to federal and state authorities to bust into the store, and arrest the duo. 

The father-and-son team bought the cards from sellers desperate for hard cash for between 20 and 40 cents on the dollar, according to News Journal. If the EBT card had a value of $500, the store owners would purchase the cards for $200. After the purchase, they would go to another store and purchase products for their convenience store. They would be spending a lot less money on their store and selling the products at normal prices, thus making a substantial profit.

 "This guy is running a business on the taxpayers' back," Daytona Beach Police Chief Michael Chitwood told Daytona local news station WFTV Channel 9. "It's a fraud. He's unscrupulous and clearly he didn't learn from the last time we hit the store."

The father was charged in December with illegally running a pawn shop from his store.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the EBT program, nearly 1,400 stores were involved in illegally exchanging food stamp cards for cash last year. The government recently signed data-sharing agreements with several states, including Ohio, to track and halt the abuse of government-subsidized benefits.