Feds charge 47 with stealing $250M from pandemic food aid program
Federal authorities have charged 47 people in Minnesota after unraveling a massive case of pandemic aid fraud.
The defendants were accused Tuesday of stealing $250 million from a program that gives food to low-income children.
According to prosecutors, the defendants created companies that purported to offer food to tens of thousands of Minnesota children and then were reimbursed through U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food nutrition programs. The money was not used on meals, but property and luxury goods, the feds alleged.
The offices of Feeding Our Future are shown Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022 in St. Anthony, Minn., a week after FBI agents raided the offices of Minnesota nonprofit. (Shari L. Gross/)
The charges included conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and bribery.
“This $250 million is the floor,” Andy Luger, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, said at a news conference. “Our investigation continues.”
He added that many of the children listed on the forms were created out of whole cloth, with a random name generator used to complete many forms.
Many of the reimbursement claims were allegedly laundered through a non-profit organization called Feeding Our Future which in return received kickbacks. Aimee Bock, the group’s founder and executive director, was among those indicted.
Aimee Bock, the executive director of the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, speaks, Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022 in St. Anthony, Minn. (Shari L. Gross/)
“Feeding Our Future employees recruited individuals and entities to open Federal Child Nutrition Program sites throughout the state of Minnesota,” the Justice Department stated. “These sites, created and operated by the defendants and others, fraudulently claimed to be serving meals to thousands of children a day within just days or weeks of being formed.”
An attorney for Bock told the Associated Press that the indictment “doesn’t indicate guilt or innocence.”
According to the FBI, Feeding Our Future received $197.9 million in reimbursements in 2021, after receiving $3.45 million in 2019 and $42.7 million in 2020.
The offices of Feeding Our Future are shown Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022 in St. Anthony, Minn., a week after FBI agents raided the offices of Minnesota nonprofit. (Shari L. Gross/)
So far this year, the Department of Justice says it has brought charges in a number of cases for more than $8 billion in pandemic-related fraud.
In the latest case, more than $50 million in money and property has been recovered and more is expected to follow, feds said.
With News Wire Services
