She collected $2.4 million in taxpayer money, but spent less than $2,000 on food.
You may remember the $250 million Feeding Our Future scandal out of Minnesota, and if you don’t, here’s a brief primer.
The pandemic unleashed a fraud tsunami. Especially in Minnesota where the rules were relaxed and a coalition of fraudsters, many of them Somali, began claiming that they were feeding millions of kids through a nonprofit known as Feeding Our Future.
In 2019, Feeding Our Future distributed $3.4 million in taxpayer food aid funds to the non-profits it was sponsoring, In 2020, that shot up to $42 million and then up to $197 million in 2021. These were impressive numbers for a charity that seemed to focus on Somalis in Minnesota.
The number eventually shot up to $250 million.
The initial case made headlines when a juror received a $120,000 bribe.
Now a 71th suspect in the $250 million fraud case was caught fleeing the country.
The FBI arrested Hibo Daar at MSP before she could board that flight to Dubai. Court records show Daar claimed to serve 1 million meals to children while operating out of an office in a business center on East Hennepin Avenue. She collected $2.4 million in taxpayer money, but federal investigators believe her meal site, “Northside Wellness,” was fake and that she actually spent less than $2,000 on food.
In those meal counts, the complaint says that by April 2021, Daar claimed to be serving about 40,000 meals to children every week.
Daar’s lawyer said in court that the defendant was traveling to visit her sick mother. But then she got caught in a lie, claiming she hadn’t traveled overseas since 2022. The prosecutors pulled out Daar’s passport and showed she had been traveling regularly since then.
Frankly, we should have let her go on the condition that she and her whole family and all their relatives give up their U.S. citizenship.
Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield
