Minneapolis Man Pleads Guilty To Role In Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme

Minneapolis Man Pleads Guilty To Role In Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme

A 33-year-old Minneapoils man has pleaded guilty to wire fraud for his role in the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud scheme.

Abdikadir Ainashe Mohamud pleaded guilty to the charge on Thursday, according to the United States Attorney's Office in Minnesota.

According to federal officials citing court documents, Mohamud claimed to be running a child nutrition site in Willmar, Minnesota called Stigma-Free Willmar from April 2020 through January 2022. The operation was allegedly under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future.

Mohamud offered to pay the owner of the restaurant FaaFan monthly so he could claim it as a Stima-Free Willmar food site. By October 2020, he claimed to be serving 3,000 meals daily from the restaurant, federal officials say.

Federal officials say Mohamud created a shell company called Tunyar Trading and claimed it was a meal vendor for the Stigma-Free Willmar food site.

Between November 2020 and December 2021, Mohamud and his co-conspirators allegedly claimed to have served around 1.6 million meals to children through Stigma-Free Willmar.

Mohamud allegedly submitted fake meal counts, invoices and attendance rosters, and transferred more than $2.5 million in federal funding from Tunyar Trading to himself and co-conspirators, federal officials said. He also transferred more than $1 million to another shell company he created called Five A's Projects LLC.

The money was allegedly used to purchase the former location of Kelly's 19th Hole — a bar and restaurant in Brooklyn Park.

Court documents, according to federal officials, show Mohamud paid more than $225,000 in bribes and kickbacks from Tunyar Trading to Feeding Our Future employee Abdikerm Eidleh. In exchange, Feeding Our Future sponsored and facilitated Stigma-Free Willmar's fraudulent protection in the Federal Child Nutrition Program.

Feeding Our Future received nearly $500,000 in administrative fees for sponsoring Stigma-Free Willmar's participation in the program, federal officials say.

Mohamud also paid $5,750 to a GoFundMe account created by Aimee Bock for Feeding Our Future. Bock is the alleged ringleader of what is called the "the largest pandemic fraud in the United States."

"Stigma-Free Willmar received over $5.3 million in payments from Feeding Our Future based on fraudulent claims," the United States Attorney's Office in Minnesota said in a release Friday.

Mohamud's sentencing hearing will be scheduled at a later date. Federal officials say part of is sentencing will include forfeiting the Kelly's 19th Hole property and over $378,000 seized from the bank account of Tunyar Trading.

SOURCE: CBS NEWS MINNESOTA