MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota – In the dense, bustling streets of Cedar-Riverside, where Somali and American flags hang side by side, and the smell of spiced tea lingers in the cold air, a massive fraud case has shaken one of Minnesota’s most tight-knit immigrant communities.
What started as an inquiry into pandemic-era child nutrition programs has grown into what federal prosecutors call the largest welfare fraud case in U.S. history, a $1 billion theft of funds meant for low-income families, schools, and children.
Caught in the center of the political firestorm is U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., whose push to expand child nutrition access during COVID-19 is now being reviewed for its unintended, or possibly ignored, fallout.
Federal officials refer to the case as the “Feeding Our Future” fraud. Dozens of people have been charged, including 79 defendants of Somali descent, in a state that hosts the largest Somali population in the country.
Prosecutors describe a network of fake nonprofits, ghost meal claims, and money laundering schemes that siphoned money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Child Nutrition Programs.
Shell companies allegedly submitted bills for meals that never existed, then channeled the money into luxury cars, international transfers, and, under current Treasury Department review, suspected links to the Somalia-based terror group Al-Shabaab.
Minnesota Whistleblowers Come Forward
Whistleblowers from the Minnesota Department of Human Services say state leaders brushed aside early warnings. As those claims surface, critics are asking whether Omar’s drive to ease rules on child nutrition funding created a perfect opening for fraud, and how closely she and her allies crossed paths with those now convicted.
Omar, a former nutrition educator and anti-hunger organizer who represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, has built much of her political identity on feeding children and fighting poverty. In 2020, when COVID school closures cut off daily meals for roughly 30 million students, she sponsored the bipartisan Maintaining Essential Access to Lunch for Students (MEALS) Act.
Folded into the sweeping CARES Act under emergency authority, the law approved waivers meant to speed payments to off-site meal providers. The waivers relaxed routine audits and paperwork to move food to families faster. On the House floor, she argued that “bureaucracy” should not block hungry children from getting food, pointing to her own experience as a Somali refugee.
The measure passed with broad support and opened the door to about $250 million in additional federal child nutrition funds for Minnesota alone. Those dollars now sit at the heart of the fraud case. Prosecutors say many defendants used the very waivers approved during the pandemic to flood the system with fake invoices for meals that were never served.
Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the scandal, allegedly moved tens of millions through a maze of businesses, including Somali-owned restaurants and sports clubs that reported feeding thousands of children per day. Investigators say in many cases the sites produced little to no food at all. Of the 87 people charged so far, a large share live in Omar’s district, turning what she once hailed as a policy win into a political liability.
Ilhan Omar Denies Everything
Omar’s office flatly rejects any suggestion that she aided or tolerated the fraud. “Rep. Omar fought to feed children during a crisis, not to enable theft,” said spokesperson Jeremy Slevin in a written statement. “Any claim that she is complicit is a baseless smear pushed by people who want to weaponize a tragedy against immigrants.”
During an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” last weekend, Omar condemned the fraud and its fallout in her own community. “Somalis are taxpayers too, and this hurts us all,” she said. She argued that warning signs were missed across many levels of government, calling the failure “systemic” and saying the breakdown came from weak federal oversight, not one piece of legislation. She also urged deeper probes into potential terrorism links and described any lapse in surveillance as “a failure of the FBI and courts.”
Even so, the personal and political connections around her are drawing new attention. Court records, campaign filings, and public photos show that Omar has had social and professional ties with several people now accused or convicted in related cases. In November 2018, she held her historic congressional victory party at Safari Restaurant on Lake Street, a well-known Somali restaurant partly owned by Salim Ahmed Said.
Said, 33, was convicted in March on 21 counts of wire fraud, bribery, and money laundering after prosecutors said he stole $5 million in child nutrition money. Safari claimed reimbursements for serving 5,000 meals a day to children.
Investigators say the records were fake and that the money helped pay for a Tesla, Rolex watches, and wire transfers to Somalia. Omar, a frequent customer at Safari, paid more than $10,000 to the restaurant for campaign events during her time as a state lawmaker and later as a congressional candidate, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
Links to Ilhan Omar
Another link runs through Guhaad Hashi Said, a Democratic political organizer who worked as Omar’s main “get-out-the-vote” force in the Somali community in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles. Hashi pleaded guilty in August to stealing $1.5 million from a youth athletic program that existed mostly on paper. Photos show Omar and Hashi together at marches and campaign events, sometimes with arms linked.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has subpoenaed documents related to Hashi’s work and claims he functioned less as a volunteer and more as a political enforcer. “Omar’s inner circle profited while kids went hungry,” Comer said in a statement. “This isn’t coincidence; it’s corruption.”
The financial and social network stretches beyond her campaign staff. Federal campaign records show donors with ties to the Feeding Our Future scandal, including relatives of some defendants, gave about $7,400 to Omar’s political committees. Prosecutors now say part of that money can be traced back to the fraudulent nutrition payments.
A former staff member, Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh, has been charged in a separate Medicaid fraud case that investigators say touches some of the same circles. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also released photos of Omar standing with Abdul Dahir Ibrahim, a Somali man living in the U.S. illegally who has a 2004 deportation order and a conviction for identity fraud.
Federal records connect Ibrahim to the Feeding Our Future case. He was arrested last week as part of a high-profile immigration sweep ordered by the Trump administration. In other photos, Ibrahim appears smiling beside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, D, at community gatherings, next to letters of support from allies such as state Sen. Omar Fateh.
Tim Walz Plays the Fool
Gov. Walz, Omar’s longtime political partner and now the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, faces his own set of allegations tied to the scandal. Former Minnesota Department of Human Services employees say senior officials in his administration suppressed fraud reports in the name of “equity” in districts with large immigrant populations.
They claim data was deleted and investigators were punished or sidelined when they pushed concerns. “Under Walz, we were told to look the other way,” one DHS worker told Fox News anonymously. Walz’s office denies those charges and insists that any oversight gaps came from federal speed and confusion during the pandemic response.
Comer has expanded his inquiry to include Walz, issuing subpoenas for emails between his office and Omar’s office. Those records cover joint appearances at Somali cultural events where some of the accused fraudsters were present.
Omar and Walz share long-standing political ties inside Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Walz has appointed several of Omar’s allies to state commissions and boards, and she campaigned for his 2022 reelection.
Their shared photos with Ibrahim, posted by DHS, have stirred anger among critics who see a pattern of favoritism. “It’s not just photos; it’s a pattern of ignoring risks in the name of representation,” said Bill Glahn, a fellow at the Center of the American Experiment, a conservative policy group.
In a written statement, Walz said the recent arrests show that “justice is blind,” while also defending Minnesota’s Somali community as “essential to our economy.”
Omar’s Wealth Questioned
At the same time, questions about Omar’s personal finances have resurfaced and are feeding public unease. Her 2024 financial disclosure, filed in May 2025, lists her household net worth in a range between $6 million and $30 million, a dramatic jump from her 2019 filing, which reported a negative $45,000. Most of the increase stems from her husband Tim Mynett’s business interests.
He owns Rose Lake Capital, a Washington, D.C., investment firm valued at between $5 million and $25 million, which claims to oversee about $60 billion in assets. He also has a stake in eStCru Wines, a California wine company valued at between $1 million and $5 million.
Omar reported no personal income from these companies, though conservative outlets like the Washington Free Beacon have questioned the timing and highlighted that Mynett’s firm advertises experience in “structuring legislation,” a phrase that echoes her MEALS Act effort.
Omar has waved off these reports as partisan attacks. In February, she called them “right-wing disinformation” and said she is “barely worth thousands,” pointing to student loan debt and a lack of real estate or stock holdings.
Fact-checking site Snopes has explained that the upper estimate in her disclosure reflects the full range of her spouse’s assets, not her individual wealth. Based on those filings, her personal net worth likely sits somewhere between $65,000 and $115,000.
Even so, in a district wrestling with the fallout from a major fraud scandal, many residents say the optics are hard to ignore. “She’s one of us, but how does her family thrive while we scrape by?” asked Amina Hassan, a Somali mother of three, during a recent community forum in Minneapolis.
As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promises to follow the stolen money “to the Middle East and Somalia,” the case has grown into more than a discussion about missing dollars. It has exposed deep tensions in Minnesota’s progressive project and raised sharp questions about how to support new Americans without opening the door to abuse.
Omar, who remains defiant on X, urged residents to stay focused on fair treatment. “This isn’t about race; it’s about accountability,” she wrote. With criminal trials approaching and the 2026 midterm elections moving closer, her once-rising profile in national politics now faces steady scrutiny.
For families like the Hassans, the sense of betrayal cuts straight to daily life. “We trusted the system to feed our kids,” Amina said, staring at the boarded-up doors of a meal site that once handed out free food boxes.
“Now it’s feeding doubt.” As federal agents and auditors sort through records and bank transfers, Minnesota waits, not only for convictions and sentences, but for some path toward healing in a community that feels both targeted and abandoned.
