Eagan woman pleads guilty to wire fraud in $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud scheme

Date: Oct. 1, 2024

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MINNEAPOLIS - An Eagan woman pleaded guilty to her role in the $250 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally-funded child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic, announced United States Attorney Andrew M. Luger.

According to court documents, Kawsar Jama was the principal of Gedo Community Services and Ahlan Childcare Center, Inc. Jama enrolled these entities in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future and Sponsor A, and operated sites in Pelican Rapids, Burnsville, and Minneapolis. One of the main food vendors for Jama's sites was Haji Osman Salad, through his business, Haji's Kitchen. Salad provided Jama with false food invoices, which she used as part of her fraudulent claims for reimbursement from the Federal Child Nutrition Program. For example, Jama's Pelican Rapids site, a small town in west-central Minnesota with a population of approximately 2,500 people, fraudulently claimed to have served more than 233,000 meals to children from September 2021 to December 2021 with Haji's Kitchen as her supposed food supplier.

In total, between June 2020 through 2022, Jama submitted at least $4.5 million in fraudulent claims for Federal Child Nutrition Program funds, some of which she spent on real estate and vehicles, including the purchase of a Tesla Model X.

Jama pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of wire fraud in U.S. District Court before Judge Nancy E. Brasel. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled at a later time.

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), FBI, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew S. Ebert, Joseph H. Thompson, and Harry M. Jacobs are prosecuting the case.

IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.