MINNEAPOLIS — A St. Paul man is the fourth person to plead guilty in connection to a $250 million child food scheme and the largest COVID-19 fraud case in the country to date.
According to U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, 40-year-old Abdul Abubakar Ali pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud after he "knowingly and willfully" conspired to defraud the federal government of millions of dollars intended for the Feeding Our Future meal and nutrition program, which was meant to serve underprivileged children during the pandemic.
Ali admitted to using a nonprofit called Youth Inventors Lab as a shell company and enrolled the company in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under FOF's sponsorship, Luger said.
According to the DOJ, Ali and others involved in the Youth Inventors Lab claimed they served meals to hundreds or thousands of children a day, and submitted for reimbursement from the government, but never served any meals. They also submitted fake invoices from a vendor that never provided the group with any food.
Earlier this month, Bekam Merdassa, a fellow co-conspirator involved with the Youth Inventors Lab, pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme.
Merdassa told investigators they laundered most of the money but he personally kept 10% of the funds they received. He now has to pay back the $300,000.
In total, the DOJ said Youth Inventors Lab claimed to have served more than 1.3 million meals between Dec. 2020 and June 2021, and fraudulently received more than $3 million in reimbursements from Feeding Our Future.
Hadith Ahmed and Hanna Marekegn also recently pleaded guilty in connection to the fraud.
Ahmed was employed by Feeding Our Future as the director of growth and development. He admitted that he solicited more than $1 million in bribes and kickbacks from people who wanted to run phony meal sites and agreed that Feeding Our Future operated a "pay-to-play" scheme. In return for the kickbacks, FOF would sponsor the meal sites through the federal program, allowing them to be reimbursed for phony meals they served.
Marekegn, who owns a restaurant called Brava Cafe, applied to be a meal site through Feeding Our Future's sponsorship. She lied about serving 4,000 breakfast and lunch meals seven days a week and collected $7.1 million. Federal prosecutors say she personally stole $5,169,405, which she will have to pay back.
In addition, Marekegn bought a $1.26 million home in Medina with the fraud money. The house is now subject to forfeiture.
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