Burnsville woman charged as 75th defendant in Minnesota’s sweeping ‘Feeding Our Future’ case
MINNEAPOLIS — Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged a Burnsville woman with siphoning nearly $1 million from a taxpayer-funded child nutrition program — the latest arrest in what authorities call the largest COVID-19 fraud case in the United States.
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Prosecutors say 44-year-old Muna Wais Fidhin misused federal money meant to serve meals to children during the pandemic, instead paying her mortgage, buying a car and sending international wire transfers. She was indicted on 10 counts, including wire fraud, federal program bribery, and money laundering, and arrested in the Twin Cities.
Fidhin is the 75th defendant charged since authorities unraveled the “Feeding Our Future” scheme, a sprawling investigation centered on emergency-era changes that temporarily loosened rules so nonprofits could quickly sponsor meal sites during lockdowns. According to the indictment, Fidhin enrolled her company, M5 Café, in 2020 under the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future and later registered a second entity, M5 Care, through another sponsor. She then reported serving 500 children a day, seven days a week, claiming more than 300,000 meals and seeking roughly $1 million in reimbursements. Prosecutors say few children were actually fed.
‘The message could not be clearer’
“With the 75th defendant charged in the Feeding Our Future scandal, the message could not be clearer,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson said. “Feeding Our Future is only one of the many frauds against the state we are pursuing.”
FBI Special Agent in Charge Alvin M. Winston Sr. said Fidhin and others “may have underestimated the FBI’s ability to identify, investigate and prosecute individuals who steal from taxpayers with funds intended for hungry children.”
Authorities allege Fidhin also paid $27,000 in kickbacks to a Feeding Our Future employee to secure approval of her claims. She has not yet entered a plea. An attorney for Fidhin was not immediately listed in online court records, and federal officials did not release details of a first appearance.
A pandemic program grows — and so did fraud
Feeding Our Future, founded by Aimee Bock, went from handling $3.4 million in federal meal reimbursements in 2019 to nearly $200 million in 2021, according to court filings. Federal prosecutors say that surge was fueled by fictitious child counts, falsified invoices, and brazen kickback schemes that turned a hunger relief network into a conduit for personal enrichment. Bock was convicted earlier this year and is awaiting sentencing.
The government’s case describes a textbook example of the risks that come with emergency aid: to feed more children quickly during COVID-19, officials relaxed some oversight and expanded eligibility. Nonprofits and pop-up sites proliferated. And in Minnesota, prosecutors say, a wave of opportunists followed — turning strip malls and office suites into addresses for phantom meal programs while routing funds into luxury purchases, overseas accounts and real estate.
Fidhin’s indictment reads like a familiar chapter in that larger story: daily meal counts that were improbably high, seven-day-a-week claims, and paperwork that told one story while the kitchen told another. The alleged scheme, while smaller than some charged in Minnesota, fits a pattern prosecutors have repeated in case after case.
A diaspora footnote
Somali-language media have previously described Fidhin as a political representative of North Western State of Somalia in the United States, and as connected by diaspora outlets to the Waddani opposition party. Those affiliations do not appear to be central to the indictment, but they hint at the layered identities often present in Minnesota’s immigrant communities — many of which mobilized admirably during the pandemic to deliver meals and mutual aid. As always, a few alleged bad actors can cast a long shadow on those doing the quiet, unheralded work.
Minnesota’s cautionary tale, the world’s ongoing test
This is not just a Minnesota story. Across the world, emergency spending during the pandemic collided with fragile oversight systems. From small-town school districts to national treasuries, auditors are still chasing money that moved faster than the controls designed to guard it.
U.S. officials have described the Feeding Our Future case — with more than $250 million allegedly misappropriated — as a cautionary tale for future crises. The Justice Department, through its COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, continues to bring new charges nationwide, underscoring that pandemic-era cases remain an open file cabinet for investigators.
The deeper question is evergreen: How do democracies move money quickly to the people who need it, without creating cracks that the unscrupulous can widen into chasms? In Minneapolis and St. Paul, parents lining up for food boxes during 2020 remember the relief. Many nonprofits stepped in with remarkable speed. Any system nimble enough to help in those moments must also be robust enough to deter fraud — and that balance is harder than it sounds.
What happens next
Fidhin faces a federal court process that will test the government’s allegations and her defense. If recent proceedings are a guide, prosecutors will lean heavily on financial records, reimbursement claims, and insider testimony to show the gap between meals claimed and meals served. The government’s filings in similar cases have included photographs of empty kitchens, text messages, and ledgers that trace dollar-by-dollar movements through bank accounts.
Meanwhile, the broader Feeding Our Future probe keeps expanding. Each new indictment adds to an ever-lengthening ledger: 75 defendants across several organizations, millions in assets seized or forfeited, and a reminder that fraud doesn’t just drain public coffers — it corrodes public trust. For families who relied on free meals during lockdowns, that trust was personal: a box of food on a Friday that meant the weekend wouldn’t be thin.
As the legal cases advance, policymakers are looking at the guardrails. Expect more digital verification, random audits, and tighter sponsor vetting. Expect, too, a reckoning over how to avoid punishing legitimate providers who serve thousands of children without headlines or fanfare.
The stakes beyond the courtroom
This story ends, as many pandemic-era investigations do, not simply with a verdict but with a recalibration. If the charges against Fidhin are proven, the money allegedly misused was meant for kids who eat most of their calories at school and through after-school programs — children for whom a missing meal is not a rounding error but a day gone hungry.
In the coming months, jurors may hear familiar phrases: “eligible site,” “sponsor,” “claim,” “reimbursement.” Behind those sterile words is a more human calculus. How do we honor the people who built food lines overnight while making it difficult for anyone to game the system? And what lessons from Minneapolis might guide governments far beyond Minnesota before the next emergency forces speed and scrutiny to share the same room again?
For now, federal agents say the message stands: they are still knocking on doors, still tracing wires, still following the money. The tally in Minnesota is up to 75 defendants. It likely won’t be the last number you see.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
