Federal prosecutors have charged 47 Somali Muslim immigrants in Minnesota with embezzling $250 million from a coronavirus relief program meant to provide food assistance to poor children.
Attorney General Merrick Garland’s office call The case is “the largest pandemic relief fraud case prosecuted to date.”
“Today’s indictment describes an egregious conspiracy to steal public funds intended to support children in need that amounts to the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme ever,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release.
“The defendants exploited a program meant to provide meals to underserved children in Minnesota during the COVID-19 pandemic by misappropriating millions of dollars earmarked for the program and enriching themselves during the pandemic. These charges send a message that the FBI and our law enforcement partners will remain vigilant and will pursue those who seek to enrich themselves through corrupt means.”
The scheme involved 47 defendants who, according to prosecutors, formed an umbrella group called “Feeding Our Future” and then numerous subgroups advertising that they would deliver food to children in need during the pandemic. The defendants allegedly used fraudulent rings to apply for relief funds at mosques across Minnesota. Once they received the funds, the defendants reported feeding thousands of children each day and provided the government with lists of non-existent children to show their success.
According to prosecutors, one such fraudulent feeding center was so brazen that it copied all the names from a website called listofrandomnames.com, sent the list to federal authorities, and claimed to have fed the people on the list.
The FBI raided the nonprofit organization Feeding Our Future in St. Anthony, Minnesota, on Jan. 20, 2022. (Elizabeth Flores/Star Tribune via Getty Images)
During the May trial, the director and imam of Dar Al Farouk Mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota, tried to argue that Feeding Our Future was feeding thousands of children every day, but witnesses said they only saw food being distributed on Saturdays, and no other days of the week, Reform Minnesota said. report.
The defense also called Paul Martin Bahler, a left-wing professor at the University of Minnesota, to entertain the jury that the Somali immigrant community was “exactly like” the Norwegian immigrant community that flooded into the area in the late 1800s and early 1900s, because Somalis remained isolated, employed each other in business, and sent large amounts of U.S. dollars back home without spending or investing in the United States.
“I’m a fourth-generation Norwegian, and my ancestors lived in this same Cedar-Riverside community 100 years ago,” the left-wing professor shouted on the witness stand.
In separate “expert” testimony, Vahler argued that it was not unusual for Somali Muslims in Minnesota to transact only in cash because Islam prohibits the use of credit cards and bank loans, but he acknowledged that one case in which more than $1 million was transferred to a Somali company to build apartments in Somalia did not appear to be conducted in accordance with legitimate Somali financial practices under Islamic law.
Jurors also heard from a man who helped one of the defendants build a nearly $1.5 million Islamic cultural and business center. The witness said he put $500,000 of his own money into the project but didn’t know where the defendants got their share of the $900,000 construction costs, which prosecutors say came from food assistance programs.
The trial is ongoing.
The suspects in this massive fraud are: Amy Marie Bock, Abdikelm Abdellahi Eidre, Salim Ahmed Said, Abdulkadir Noor Salah, Ahmed Sharif Omar Hashim, Abdi Noor Salah, Abdihakim Ali Ahmed, Ahmed Mohamed Altan, Abdulkadir Aynansheh Mohamud, Abdinassir Mahmed Abusir, Assad Mohamed Abusir, Hamdi Hussein Omar, Ahmed Abdullahi Gedi, Abdirahman Mohamed Ahmed, Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Mohamed Jama Ismail, Mahad Ibrahim, Abdimad Mohamed Noor, Said Shafii Farah, Abdiwahab Maalim Akhter. The following are some of the participants: Mukhtar Mohamed Sharif, Hayat Mohamed Noor, Kamal Ahmed Hassan, Safra Mohamed Noor, Abdiwahab Ahmed Mohamud, Filsan Mumin Hassan, Guhad Hashi Said, Abdullahe Noor Jessou, Abdul Abubakar Ali, Yusuf Bashir Ali, Haji Osman Salad, Fahad Noor, Anab Alta Awad, Sharmarke Issa, Farhiya Mohamud, Liban Yasin Alishah, Ahmed Yasin Ali, Kadar Zigle Adan, Sharmarke Jama, Ayan Jama, Asya Jama, Fartun Jama, Mustafa Jama, Zamzam Jama, Bekam Addis Merdassa, Hadith Yusuf Ahmed and Hanna Malekegun.
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