MINNEAPOLIS — The Justice Department said on Tuesday that a federal grand jury had carried out a brazen fraud against hunger programs during the coronavirus pandemic, charging the government 240 million for meals it failed to provide to children. It said it had indicted 44 people for stealing $10,000. who did not exist.
The case in Minnesota appears to be the largest fraud case uncovered by the pandemic relief program, and stands out even in a recent spate of scams that bear little resemblance, thanks to heavy federal spending and lax oversight. increase.
According to prosecutors, the operation in Minnesota was particularly daring. One of his conspirators has told the government that in his upstairs apartment he fed 5,000 children a day.
The other defendants in the case used the website listofrandomnames.com to create a fake list of children who could be charged for food and went to great lengths to disguise what they were doing. Others have used number generator programs to generate the ages of the children they supposedly feed. This caused the ages to fluctuate significantly each time the group updated the list of non-existent children.
But their scheme — details of which were reported in The New York Times in March — still brings in millions of dollars a week, prosecutors said in court documents. I had help from a trusted insider.
That insider was Aimee Bock, founder of the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. This is the group the state of Minnesota relied on as a watchdog to thwart fraud at feeding sites. But Mr. Bock did the opposite, according to the indictment. When the pandemic relief program flooded the program with funds, she used her position to set up nearly 200 new feeding operations she knew were submitting false or exaggerated bills. Brought.
Even when Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s government called into question, Ms. Bock filed a lawsuit, accusing state officials of discriminating East African customers from most of her group. rejected them.
“In effect, Feeding Our Future operated a pay-to-play scheme whereby individuals seeking to operate fraudulent sites under Feeding Our Future sponsorship had to kickback a portion of the proceeds from the fraud. One indictment was obtained by The Times, according to a copy.
Mr. Bock has been charged with wire fraud and bribery related to federal programs. Other defendants were also charged with money laundering for routing stolen funds through a network of shell companies.
The lawsuit is one of the most prominent lawsuits filed by the Justice Department as it rushes to address the wave of fraud associated with pandemic-era programs.
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Ministry of Labor Inspectorate Office opened 39,000 surveysAt the Small Business Administration, about 50 agents sort through 2 million potentially fraudulent loan applications. And while the sheer volume of cases ensures that some cases will be left behind, Minnesota prosecutors show the Justice Department is working aggressively on others.
According to the indictment, the defendants spent money on real estate, cars and luxury goods in the United States, Kenya and Turkey. The DOJ is trying to seize many of these purchases, including over 20 cars, over 40 property, guns, cryptocurrency and Louis Vuitton duffel bags.
An indictment is an indictment, and many of those indicted say they have done nothing wrong. After a series of FBI investigations in January uncovered the existence of an investigation, Bock told The New York Times that he had strong anti-fraud measures in place and that no one in the system had broken the rules. said he did not believe.
In case of fraud, Bock said: Could you? absolutely. And if they beat us, I’ll help hold them accountable.”
Also among those charged was Feeding Our Future employee Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh. Three other defendants, including Hadith Yusuf Ahmed, an employee of another nonprofit, were indicted via “criminal intelligence” rather than grand jury indictments.
The state blocked Feeding Our Future from receiving further aid after the FBI issued a search warrant in January. At the time, the nonprofit was seeking dissolution, but Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was a Democrat. I was blocked movement. Ellison asked a judge to supervise the group while he investigated whether they violated state charity laws. That investigation appears to be ongoing.
As prosecutors explained, the participants targeted two federal food aid programs that were administered through state governments. They were intended to feed children in after-school programs and summer camps. But when the pandemic hit, Congress readjusted the program to reach out to millions of children trapped at home. billions more Change the rules so your family can go out to eat.
But as funding grew, scrutiny declined. For example, state officials Eliminates the need to directly check feeding locations.
It’s the so-called watchdog sponsors like Feeding Our Future. These nonprofits were to act as conduits for funds from the state to individual feeding stations and to guard against fraud.
But the system also gave these guard dogs a reason not to bark. They can keep 10-15% of the money flowing through it.
In this case, according to the indictment, Mr. Bock’s group kept the money flowing to increase its own burden.
“Defendants have exploited the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in program changes to enrich themselves,” the indictment states.
Feeding Our Future started pre-pandemic as a small sponsor overseeing $3.5 million in funding. It never had an accountant on staff, sometimes struggled with basic governance, and even had its non-profit status temporarily revoked.
But by 2021, Feeding Our Future was processing $197 million annually.
Six different groups under its umbrella launched similar fraudulent activities, according to the indictment. Co-conspirators often registered new companies and nonprofits, quickly registering them as feeding businesses under the supervision of Feeding Our Future.
Then, according to the indictment, the new group soon reported feeding thousands of children a day, making it one of the largest feeding operations in the state and the federal government. In Minneapolis, for example, a man named Guhaad Hashi Said gave the state 5,000 meals twice a day at a new facility called Advance Youth Athletic Development. He said he does.
The places he mentioned were unlikely to serve children in groups. The address he had was a two-story apartment.
Said was one of those charged. He received his $2.9 million from state and federal funds via Feeding Our Future, according to the indictment. But the indictment said it was “just a fraction” of the meal Said claimed to have served. In an interview earlier this year, Said said he never claimed to serve 5,000 meals a day in the first place.
In 2020, Minnesota officials became concerned about the speed at which Feeding Our Future created new distribution sites and began scrutinizing it more.
In November of that year, the nonprofit responded defiantly, filing a lawsuit accusing state officials of discrimination. The complaint alleges that the state is harming children by delaying the launch of Feeding Our Future’s new business. “Every day, hundreds of the state’s most vulnerable children go without getting the food they need.
According to the indictment, some of the sites the state tried to slow down later became centers of fraud.
In response to the Feeding Our Future lawsuit, a state court judge ruled that Minnesota did not take the necessary steps to block payments. Then, in April 2021, a disgruntled state official contacted her FBI to continue paying Feeding Our Future and its partners while federal agents investigated.
Kevin Burns, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Education that deals with food, said, “The state will move quickly and wait until we can find someone who takes serious spending as seriously as we do.” I have repeatedly raised the issue to .-Aid money.
Republicans in the state Senate report Earlier this month, before the indictment was made public, the state’s education department accused it of “dereliction of duty” for not stopping “feeding our future” early.