Defendants and witnesses in a series of trials concerning $250 million of “misused” federal child nutrition funds have implicated a far-reaching network of organizations and individuals across Minnesota. Prosecutors have so far painted a complex web of contracts, subsidies and kickbacks involving dozens of individuals and organizations.
Now, Islamist officials with high-level political contacts, based out of Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center and its subsidiaries, appear to be more closely involved than federal prosecutors initially realized.
Seventy people have been charged for their alleged role in what appears to be the largest ever case of pandemic relief fraud. The most recent trial involved seven defendants from Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit organization believed to have played a pivotal role in the scheme. Any day now, the jury is expected to reach a verdict.
Federal prosecutors accuse the initial seven of embezzling $49 million in federal funds by “vastly inflating the number of meals served at 50 locations across Minnesota during the pandemic” and using federal reimbursement monies to “buy luxury cars, houses, jewelry and property overseas — and very little food,” reports the Minnesota Reformer.
Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, the only defendant to testify, told the jury last week that he was a long-standing member of the Dar al-Farooq mosque in Bloomington. Indeed, it was in Dar al-Farooq that Shariff met Mahad Ibrahim, who is also indicted on federal charges over the alleged fraud.
Four (ostensibly fraudulent) “food sites,” operated by Feeding Our Future and its network of associated nonprofits and shell companies, were hosted at Dar Al-Farooq. Three of the food sites were organized at Success Academy, a taxpayer-funded charter school based at the mosque and closely involved with the mosque leadership. The fourth was managed on mosque grounds by the Mind Foundry Learning Foundation, a group established by Mahad Ibrahim.
“Everybody” at Feeding Our Future received “kickbacks,” explained Hadith Ahmed, a prosecution witness. He told the jury, as paraphrased by the Minnesota Reformer, that “mosques made good distribution sites because they were high-traffic areas, [and] were already nonprofits.”
Ahmed claims to have received kickbacks from Dar Al-Farooq, reports the Sahan Journal. However, it appears the mosque did not pay Hadith directly. Prosecutors presented a $10,000 check to Ahmed from Empire Cuisine, a restaurant owned by one of the defendants. Empire Cuisine was the food supplier for Dar Al-Farooq’s food site organizer, Mind Foundry.
Hadith seems to have had some influence over the mosque, with the Sahan Journal reporting that a “prosecutor presented emails in court showing that Hadith helped Mukhtar Shariff, a defendant in the trial, change the mosque’s sponsor … to Feeding Our Future.”
Amid this vast web of financial conspiracy, no mosque officials have yet been charged. Notwithstanding, defense lawyers have wheeled out a steady supply of mosque-affiliated witnesses to argue that the food sites operated by Feeding Our Future were in fact genuine.
According to the Minnesota Reformer, “The mosque’s director, Khalid Omar, and imam, Abdirahman Kariye, testified that they saw long lines of cars there to pick up bags of groceries.” The newspaper adds that “Abdikadir Haji, dean of the Success Academy, a charter school within the mosque, testified” as well.
However, further questioning revealed that the defendant, Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, “has been friends” with Karyie “for over 10 years and has traveled abroad with him extensively.”
As FWI has previously revealed, Kariye is a U.S. manager at Helping Hands for Relief and Development, a prominent radical charity affiliated with the violent South Asian Islamist movement Jamaat-e-Islami. In 2017, the charity partnered with a Pakistani terrorist movement accused of involvement in the 2008 Mumbai bombings.
FWI has previously noted that Karyie appears to be on a government watchlist because of his radical views, especially about women and Western society, and his ties to extremist institutions. Kariye attended the Islamic University of Minnesota, which appears to be a sister organization of Dar al-Farooq and whose instructors express violently anti-Jewish rhetoric.
Defense lawyers appear keen to explain away the alleged misuse of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars as mere Islamic financing ideas combined with a cultural “preference for doing (business) outside the gaze of the government.”
The movement of monies between this complicated network of nonprofits and companies, as well as payments sent abroad, can perhaps be explained, defense witness Professor Paul Martin Vaaler told the jury, through sharia’s proscription on usury, adding that Somalis avoid credit cards on the grounds that “cash is king.”
But local Muslim congregants of Dar al-Farooq appear to have felt differently. One exhibit (whose admissibility has been fought by the defense), features a series of writings to the local community, published in 2021 and signed by “EX YOUTH OF DFC [Dar Al-Farooq].”…
