Man Sentenced to 17 Years in Prison for Role in $250M Feeding Our Future fraud; One Sentence, One Plea Announced in $250 Million Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme, and other C-Virus related stories
Man sentenced to 17 years in prison for role in $250M Feeding Our Future fraud:
A Bloomington man has been sentenced to 17 years in prison for his role in the $250 million Feeding Our Future scheme that defrauded a federal child nutrition program at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, 34, was sentenced to 210 months in prison on Friday, with a court hearing that while the CEO of the Afrique Hospitality Group, he oversaw the theft of more than $47 million of funding intended to feed needy children during the pandemic.
It was part of a wider scheme that saw dozens of actors claim federal funding to feed children, either exaggerating the number of children they were feeding, or inventing them entirely. Thus far, 70 people have been charged in connection to the scheme, at the center of which was the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, which was in charge of distributing some of the federal nutrition funds.
Shariff and several co-conspirators were found to have created and submitted fake meal count sheets purporting to show the number of children fed at numerous sites across the Twin Cities, fabricating the names of children allegedly receiving meals. At one point it claimed it was feeding 3,500 children a day.
It comes after the USDA loosened its requirements for the Federal Child Nutrition Program in 2020 in response to the COVID pandemic, allowing a larger number of providers to take part in it as the spread of the deadly virus sparked widespread shutdowns and led to significant unemployment. —>READ MORE HERE
One Sentence, One Plea Announced in $250 Million Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme:
The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced two major developments in the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud case.
Acting U.S. Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick says 43-year-old Ayan Farah Abukar of Savage pleaded guilty to her involvement in the sweeping scheme that exploited a federally funded child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Court documents reveal Abukar was the founder and executive director of the non-profit Action for East African People. She enrolled her organization in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future, and an entity only referred to as Sponsor A. From October 2020 to 2022, Abukar claimed to serve meals to up to 5,000 children daily at sites in Bloomington, Minneapolis, Savage, and St. Paul. Abukar’s fraudulent activities resulted in her landing approximately $5.7 million in program funds.
As part of the scheme, Abukar paid over $330,000 in kickbacks to a Feeding Our Future employee and used the stolen money to purchase luxury items, including a 37-acre commercial property in Lakeville and an aircraft in Nairobi, Kenya.
Abukar pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud before Chief Judge Schiltz in U.S. District Court. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled at a later date.
Meanwhile, a Bloomington man has been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for his involvement in the scheme.
After a seven-week trial in U.S. District Court, 34-year-old Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff was convicted in June 2024 of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. —>READ MORE HERE
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