Three people have pleaded guilty to federal charges for their involvement in an alleged $250 million fraud scheme that stole federal aid money intended for children’s meal programs in Minnesota.
Haji Osman Salad, 34, Sharmarke Issa, 42, and Khadra Abdi, 42, defrauded the government of more than $18.7 million in connection with one of the single largest instances of pandemic aid fraud in the country, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger announced on Friday.
It’s the latest set of guilty pleas tied to massive alleged fraud at the non-profit Feeding Our Future between 2020 and 2022. A total of 70 individuals have been charged in connection to the case so far.
Salad falsely claimed to have distributed 15 million meals through his company Haji’s Kitchen to various Federal Child Nutrition Program sites in the state, federal prosecutors said in a release announcing the guilty pleas. Issa and Abdi were among the largest recipients of the meals Salad claimed to distribute.
In an example cited by federal prosecutors, Salad created fraudulent invoices for meals served at a site tied to Issa’s co-defendant Kawsar Jama in Pelican Rapids, a west-central town of around 2,500 people. In all, he claimed to distribute 140,000 meals and snacks for $293,000, prosecutors said.
In total, Salad defrauded the government of nearly $11.5 million intended for the federal nutrition program and spent it on real estate and luxury vehicles, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Issa falsely claimed his business Somali Community and Wacan Restaurant LLC, distributed 2.3 million meals and used another business to launder the proceeds to pay for real estate, federal authorities said. In all, Issa took just under $3.6 million in federal meal aid.
Abdi claimed to distribute meals through the Shafi’i Tutoring & Homework Help Center, and took around $3.5 million, according to federal authorities.
Salad, Issa and Abdi will be sentenced at a later date. The U.S. Attorney is continuing its prosecutions in what they say is one of the biggest federal fraud schemes of the pandemic.
In June a jury convicted five Minnesota residents and acquitted two others for their roles in a scheme to steal more than $40 million from a program. That case received widespread attention after someone tried to bribe a juror with a bag of $120,000 in cash.
The nonprofit Feeding Our Future received federal dollars from the U.S. Department of Agriculture via the state education department.
Those responsible for the fraud spent the money on homes, trips, jewelry and luxury cars, according to prosecutors.
The federal money was supposed to reimburse nonprofits for meals served at locations like day care centers, after-school programs and summer camps.
Federal prosecutors have said individuals involved with Feeding Our Future and another nonprofit, Partners in Nutrition, claimed to serve thousands of meals at locations that turned out to be deserted.
A review from the nonpartisan Office of the Legislative Auditor released in June found that “inadequate oversight” by the Minnesota Department of Education created an opportunity for fraud.
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