ROCHESTER, Minn. — Editor's note: The attached video originally aired on Jan. 21, 2022
A Minnesota man who was already under investigation for a large-scale fraud scheme tied to the nonprofit Feeding Our Future has been arrested on a passport charge.
According to court documents, Mohamed Jama Ismail was arrested on Wednesday, April 20 at Minneapolis International Airport by the FBI after he booked a flight from Rochester, Minnesota to Nairobi, Kenya using the passport he had obtained illegally.
Months earlier, authorities executed a search warrant at Ismail's home in Savage. During the search on Jan. 20, law enforcement seized his U.S. passport.
Then on March 22, Ismail filed for a new passport, falsely claiming he had lost his passport at home. He also said that he filed a report with Savage police relating to the loss of the documentation, but officials say no such report has been found, according to documents from the Department of Justice.
The U.S. Department of State issued Ismail a new passport in March based on his false application. He then booked a flight from Rochester to Kenya, via MSP and then Amsterdam Schiphol Airport for April 20. When Ismail checked in for his flight in Rochester, he used his new passport
He was subsequently arrested by the FBI when he arrived at MSP and boarded his flight for Amsterdam.
Court documents state that Ismail is charged with one count of passport fraud, and made his initial appearance in U.S. District Court on Thursday.
Ismail is one of the targets of a federal investigation into the misappropriation of Federal Child Nutrition Program funds, according to district court documents.
The offices of Feeding Our Future were raided by the FBI in January amid accusations that the group and some of its contractors had defrauded at least $197 million meant for purchasing and providing free meals for needy children from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2021 alone. The search warrant alleged that the group had used the money to buy luxury vehicles, real estate, jewelry and other purchases in the U.S. and around the world.
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