Forty-Fifth Conviction in the Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme

A Minneapolis man has entered a plea for his role in the $250 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally funded child nutrition program. 

According to Acting U.S. Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick, 39 year old Abdihakim Ali Ahmed pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to wire fraud and money laundering. 

Kirkpatrick says Ahmed claimed to be operating a child nutrition site in St. Paul from September 2020 through January 2022. According to court documents, Ahmed registered with the Minnesota Secretary of State and applied to operate a food site in a St. Paul strip mall under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. 

Ahmed and his co-conspirators claimed to be serving meals to 2,000 or 3,000 children each day, seven days a week. Ahmed and his co-conspirators fraudulently claimed to have served more than 1.6 million meals. Ahmed submitted multiple fake attendance rosters that purported to identify both the names and ages of approximately 2,000 children who attended an “after-school program” in September through December 2021. 

Ahmed and his co-conspirators transferred more than $1 million to a shell company he created. Ahmed used these proceeds to purchase the former location of Kelly’s 19th Hole bar in Brooklyn Park.