MINNEAPOLIS, March 19, 2025 – Aimee Bock and Salim Said, two ringleaders of the $250 million Feeding Our Future heist were convicted of federal fraud charges after a six-week jury trial.
Bock was convicted on four counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of bribery, and one count of conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery. Said was convicted on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, four counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, eight counts of bribery, one count conspiracy to commit money laundering and five counts of money laundering.
The case resulted from eased access to taxpayer funds during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bock and Said orchestrated a scheme that allowed a team of Muslim immigrants to falsely report serving meals to thousands of children every day, rather than a few who might have actually received meals. The fraud was assisted by media complacency and woke attitudes prompting little oversight of funds sought by immigrants. Leftists claimed children would starve if the federal government did not provide hundreds of millions in taxpayer money to feed them. Suspicions about the numbers submitted by Salid and other fraudsters were greeted with cries of racism.
“Feeding Our Future employees recruited individuals and entities to open Federal Child Nutrition Program sites throughout the state of Minnesota,” prosecutors said. “These sites, created and operated by Bock, Said, and others, fraudulently claimed to be serving meals to thousands of children a day within just days or weeks of being formed. Bock and Said created and submitted false documentation, including fraudulent meal counts consisting of fake attendance rosters purporting to list the names and ages of the children receiving meals at the sites each day. Feeding Our Future submitted these fraudulent claims to the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and then disbursed the fraudulently obtained Federal Child Nutrition Program funds to their co-conspirators involved in the scheme.”
“To accomplish their scheme,” the U.S. Attorney’s office said, “Bock and Said created dozens of shell companies to enroll in the program as food program sites, and to receive and launder the proceeds of their fraudulent scheme. In exchange for sponsoring these sites’ fraudulent participation in the program, Feeding Our Future received more than $18 million in administrative fees to which it was not entitled. In addition to the administrative fees, Feeding Our Future employees solicited and received bribes and kickbacks from individuals and companies sponsored by Feeding Our Future. Many of these kickbacks were paid in cash or disguised as ‘consulting fees’ paid to shell companies created by Feeding Our Future employees to make them appear legitimate.”
Said’s Safari Restaurant reported approximately $600,000 in annual revenue in each of the three years prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2020, Safari Restaurant enrolled in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. By July 2020, Said claimed to be serving meals to 5,000 children per day, seven days a week. In total, Said claimed to have served over 3.9 million meals to children from the Safari Restaurant food site between April 2020 and November 2021. Said also claimed that Safari Restaurant provided more than 2.2 million meals to other food sites involved in Feeding Our Future’s fraud scheme.
Feeding Our Future opened more than 250 Federal Child Nutrition Program sites throughout the state of Minnesota. As the so-called non-profit expanded, its federal funding increased from approximately $3.4 million in 2019 to nearly $200 million in 2021.
The defendants used the proceeds to buy luxury vehicles, residential and commercial real estate in Minnesota, Ohio and Kentucky; real estate in Kenya and Turkey, and to fund international travel.
Salim Said used proceeds from the scheme to buy a $1.175 million home at 5150 Alvarado Lane N in Plymouth in 2021, among other luxuries. A co-defendant, Abdikerm Eidleh, used about $95,000 to pay a mortgage on a home at 15101 County Road 5, Burnsville. The indictment also notes funds paid to Dodge of Burnsville for some of the cars bought by defendants.
“Stealing from the federal government is stealing from the American people – plain and simple,” the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release. ”The egregious fraud uncovered in the Feeding our Future case represents the blatant betrayal of public trust. These criminals stole hundreds of millions in federal funding meant to feed hungry children during a crisis and instead funneled it into luxury homes, cars and lavish lifestyles while families struggled,” said Special Agent in Charge Alvin M. Winston Sr. of FBI Minneapolis.
