Star Tribune
Nine more charged in latest wave of Feeding Our Future federal fraud case
A group of relatives and a married couple who ran a Minneapolis grocery are among the latest to be charged in the sprawling Feeding Our Future food fraud case, now bringing the total number of defendants to 70.
In a pair of indictments returned by a grand jury late last month and unsealed Monday, one alleges a scheme perpetrated by a half-dozen relatives who helped obtain and launder millions of dollars in fraudulent proceeds intended to help feed needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the new charges, a consultant for the Feeding Our Future program named Ikram Yusuf Mohamed started multiple sites that claimed to serve food to children under Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship. She allegedly put the sites in the name of her relatives to conceal her involvement, solicited and received kickbacks from people and companies involved in the scheme and used her IM Consultation LLC to receive and launder kickback payments and fraud proceeds.
Mohamed is being charged alongside her mother, husband, sister and two brothers in the new indictment. Co-defendants include Suleman Yusuf Mohamed, Aisha Hassan Hussein, Sahra Sharif Osman, Shakur Abdinur Abdisalam, Fadumo Mohamed Yusuf and Gandi Yusuf Mohamed. All nine were indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, among other charges that include federal programs bribery and other individual counts.
Attorneys have not yet been publicly listed for any of the defendants named in the two indictments unsealed Monday.
The charges outline similar a similar plot alleged against many of those initially charged when federal prosecutors began rolling out indictments in September, 2022. Purporting to operate meal sites between Minneapolis, Edina and Hopkins, the co-defendants in one indictment unsealed Monday are accused of falsely claiming to serve thousands of children daily – while also submitting fake rosters of children served to the state.
Multiple co-defendants allegedly funneled money from the scheme to Ikram through Afrique Hospitality Group, owned by Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff and used it to launder the fraudulently obtained federal funds.
A separate indictment unsealed Monday outlined similar charges against a husband and wife who owned and worked at a grocery and deli in Minneapolis. Said Ereg owned Evergreen Grocery and Deli, which also operated a food site under Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship. His wife, Najmo Ahmed worked for the business and received payroll payments from Feeding Our Future.
According to charges, Evergreen claimed to both serve as a food distribution site but also offer “homework help/mentoring” on its application to participate in the federal food aid program.
Starting in April 2020, before it received official enrollment in the program, Evergreen Grocery and Deli sent meal count sheets claiming to have served thousands of meals that month — later claiming at times to serve more than 3,000 meals, twice a day, seven days a week.
“However, Evergreen Grocery and Deli only served a fraction of those meals,” the indictment reads.
Based on those claims, the indictment said, the grocery store received more than $4.2 million in payments for purportedly serving meals.
Instead, the charges allege that the couple transferred much of the money to personal accounts in their own names and made purchases from Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Canada Goose. They also transferred more than $2.5 million to foreign textile and trading companies, and paid more than $100,000 in kickbacks to Abdikerm Eidleh, a Feeding Our Future employee in exchange for sponsorship, the charges allege.
Such payments were often labeled as fees for “consulting” or loan repayments.
The new charges come days after a Burnsville grocery store owner was charged with wire fraud in the case. Hoda Ali Abdi, who owned Alif Halal LLC, was charged Thursday in federal court via a felony information, a charging mechanism through which a defendant waives the right to a grand jury. Prosecutors said Abdi received nearly $1.3 million from the federal meals programs for needy children. The money came through her work as a food vendor to distribution sites and through her own meals program, prosecutors allege.
Prosecutors said she provided fake invoices for substantial amounts of food but distributed little to no food.
“Hoda Abdi is a very good person. She has faced and overcome many hardships in her life,” her attorney, Thomas Kelly, said. “Unfortunately she has made mistakes recently in connection with this scheme, for which she is truly contrite. We hope to demonstrate that she had little to gain or gain very little, and loses quite a bit.”
Her first court hearing is scheduled for April 11.
In January 2022, the FBI raided Feeding Our Future, a St. Anthony nonprofit that oversaw hundreds of meal distribution sites in Minnesota. The operation is at the center of what prosecutors say is one of the largest pandemic-related fraud cases in the country, totaling more than $250 million.
The federal program reimburses schools and nonprofits for providing meals to low-income children after school and during the summer. According to court documents, Abdi’s store was a food vendor for sites sponsored by Feeding Our Future and a St. Paul nonprofit.
So far, 17 people have pleaded guilty in the case. The first trials are slated to begin this spring.
Staff writer Kelly Smith contributed to this report.
Twin Cities, get ready to potentially spot an ex on the Minneapolis season of Love Is Blind, which was officially announced Wednesday night.
The anticipated reunion episode that closed out season 7, set in Washington, D.C., included the surprise announcement. The eighth season will launch on Valentine’s Day.
“This Valentine’s Day 2025 will mark the five-year anniversary of the premiere of Love Is Blind, and it is going to be the launch of season 8, which takes place in Minneapolis,” host Vanessa Lachey said in a moment also posted to social media.
Three of the incoming Minneapolis singles were introduced in the reunion episode. When asked about the challenges of the dating scene in Minneapolis, one contestant shared a sentiment many Minnesotans will be familiar with.
“It’s such a small community, it’s not like a major city but it’s also not a small town. So you kind of see the same people over and over, and it’s a small bar scene,” he said.
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
