If you thought all that “free” Covid-19 money floating around beginning in 2020 was an invitation to fraud, you thought right.
Federal prosecutors have indicted 47 people in Minnesota for defrauding the taxpayers of $250 million. The money was supposed to buy food for needy kids during the pandemic. Instead, it lined the pockets of the suspects, prosecutors allege.
In six indictments, prosecutors say the China Virus swindle is the largest to date. Strangely, every single one of the fraud suspects, except the white American woman whom prosecutors say hatched the plan, appears to be a Somali, proving yet again that diversity is our strength, and Third World immigrants are culturally enriching — even if they enrich themselves with stolen tax money.
The Scheme
Led by key suspect Aimee Bock, “the defendants devised and carried out a massive scheme to defraud the Federal Child Nutrition Program,” a Justice Department news release explains:
The defendants obtained, misappropriated, and laundered millions of dollars in program funds that were intended as reimbursements for the cost of serving meals to children. The defendants exploited changes in the program intended to ensure underserved children received adequate nutrition during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than feed children, the defendants enriched themselves by fraudulently misappropriating millions of dollars in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
The Minnesota Department of Education handled the funds from the federal government.
Obvious question: How was it so easy for the suspects to pocket $250 million, with which they were supposed to provide 125 million meals for kids?
The U.S. Department Agriculture “waived some of the standard requirements for participation in the Federal Child Nutrition Program” and permitted for-profit restaurants to join the program. It also “allowed for off-site food distribution to children outside of educational programs,” DOJ says.
Thus did Bock, the brains behind Feeding our Future, lead her gang in a “massive fraud scheme carried out by sites under Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship. Feeding Our Future went from receiving and disbursing approximately $3.4 million in federal funds in 2019 to nearly $200 million in 2021,” DOJ alleges:
As part of the charged scheme, Feeding Our Future employees recruited individuals and entities to open Federal Child Nutrition Program sites throughout the state of Minnesota. These sites, created and operated by the defendants and others, fraudulently claimed to be serving meals to thousands of children a day within just days or weeks of being formed. The defendants created dozens of shell companies to enroll in the program as Federal Child Nutrition Program sites. The defendants also created shell companies to receive and launder the proceeds of their fraudulent scheme.
To carry out the scheme, the defendants also created and submitted false documentation. They submitted fraudulent meal count sheets purporting to document the number of children and meals served at each site. The defendants submitted false invoices purporting to document the purchase of food to be served to children at the sites. The defendants also submitted fake attendance rosters purporting to list the names and ages of the children receiving meals at the sites each day. These rosters were fabricated and created using fake names. For example, one roster was created using names from a website called “www.listofrandomnames.com.” Because the program only reimbursed for meals served to children, other defendants used an Excel formula to insert a random age between seven and 17 into the age column of the rosters.
Despite knowing the claims were fraudulent, Feeding Our Future submitted the fraudulent claims to MDE and then disbursed the fraudulently obtained Federal Child Nutrition Program funds to the individuals and entities involved in the scheme.
The nut of what Bock and the other suspects pulled off: “Feeding Our Future opened more than 250 sites throughout the state of Minnesota and fraudulently obtained and disbursed more than $240 million in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds. The defendants used the proceeds of their fraudulent scheme to purchase luxury vehicles, residential and commercial real estate in Minnesota as well as property in Ohio and Kentucky, real estate in Kenya and Turkey, and to fund international travel.”
U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger for the District of Minnesota called it “a brazen scheme of staggering proportions”:
These defendants exploited a program designed to provide nutritious food to needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, they prioritized their own greed, stealing more than a quarter of a billion dollars in federal funds to purchase luxury cars, houses, jewelry, and coastal resort property abroad. I commend the work of the skilled investigators and prosecutors who unraveled the lies, deception, and mountains of false documentation to bring this complex case to light.”
The Charges
Bock and her 46 co-defendants are charged with myriad crimes, including wire fraud, money laundering, and federal program bribery, and conspiracy to commit all three crimes. Among the 46 are those with names such as Salim Ahmed Said, Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh, and Abdikadir Ainanshe Mohamud, all of which are Somali. Somalis began invading Minnesota in 1993.
DOJ did not report the immigration status of those arrested.
Somalis you’ve never heard of aren’t the only fraudsters from that country in Minnesota. More notable is Democrat Ilhan Omar, the Somali Muslim who represents The North Star State’s 5th district in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Omar not only committed immigration and federal student-loan fraud when she married her brother, but also shoveled millions of dollars of campaign money into her then-boyfriend Tim Mynett’s political consulting firm. She married Mynett after helping wreck his first marriage.
