BS BULLETIN:

• Independent reporter Nick Shirley went undercover in Seattle to document alleged SNAP benefits being traded for cash.
• His video captured one woman acknowledging the transaction was fraud after Shirley confronted her.
• The investigation descended into chaos when a security guard lost his gun during a sidewalk fight and Shirley’s crew fled the area.

Nick Shirley went looking for food-stamp fraud in Seattle.

He ended up running for a getaway car after a security guard’s gun disappeared in the middle of a street brawl.

The independent reporter released a wild new investigation Wednesday documenting what he said was an underground market where SNAP recipients sell access to their benefits for a fraction of their value.

Shirley compared the trading to swapping Pokémon cards — except taxpayer-funded food benefits were reportedly being exchanged for cash and, in some cases, drugs.

At one point, Shirley spoke with a man who said his food-stamp card contained $306. Asked what he’d take for it, the man offered to sell it for $120.

Shirley, wearing a Seahawks beanie and face covering to conceal his identity, then connected with a middle-aged Vietnamese woman who offered to arrange a transaction.

She took him to a seafood market, where Shirley said the cashier charged $120 for a can of Spam and a plate of sushi.

Shirley suspected the inflated transaction allowed the store and the woman to convert SNAP benefits into cash.

Once outside, he dropped the undercover act.

“You’re committing fraud. Food stamp fraud. It’s against the law,” Shirley told her.

“I know, yeah,” the woman responded.

Rather than ending the conversation, she reportedly began pointing Shirley toward other people she said were participating in similar transactions.

Shirley then returned to the seafood market to confront employees about what he had recorded.

That’s when the investigation took a considerably more dangerous turn.

One of Shirley’s security guards became involved in a physical confrontation outside with a man Mediaite described as homeless. During the fight, the guard’s gun fell into a crowd and disappeared.

The guard began fighting with others while trying to recover the weapon.

Shirley was subsequently told what had happened, and his crew decided it was time to leave.

Fast.

Video shows Shirley and his team sprinting down the sidewalk toward a vehicle as people recognized him.

“This is arguably one of the most dangerous situations I’ve ever been in,” another member of Shirley’s security team told him after getting inside.

The guard warned that people outside were yelling Shirley’s name and said the reporter was being “targeted.”

Even the getaway produced one final surreal moment.

A man suspected of using fentanyl tried to run alongside the fleeing crew before falling behind.

“I’m on fenty, I can’t run!” he yelled.

That may be the only customer review of Seattle’s alleged street-level food-stamp economy that nobody was expecting.