The MGM crime reporter introduces Mr. Stanton, Special Investigator for the Crime Prevention Bureau. Stanton describes the problems that developed with the government sponsored Home Relief program, which was designed to get food to the hungry and needy during the Depression through distribution of Relief tickets accepted by food merchants. Racketeers, led by Nick Garvey, were forcing food merchants to sell them their Home Relief tickets collected for a fraction of their worth. Garvey would get his men, a handful of those merchants, to collect the face value of the tickets from the Home Relief Bureau. Problems arose for Garvey when many of the merchants refused to deal in Home Relief tickets anymore, since they were losing money in the process. Garvey, in turn, made the merchants continue to collect tickets, but raise their prices to make up the difference. This led to a public outcry. With a mole in the relief office, Garvey was seemingly one step ahead of Stanton. So Stanton had to come up with a quick shot-in-the dark way to find the perpetrators of the scam.