Minnesota fraud suspect arrested in Somalia after four-year search

A man federal prosecutors describe as a top figure in the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud case has been arrested in Somalia after more than four years on the run, U.S. officials said.

Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh, 42, was taken into custody Thursday in Mogadishu during a daytime raid coordinated by the FBI and Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency. U.S. authorities announced the arrest Friday. Officials have not disclosed how Eidleh was located.

Eidleh was indicted in September 2022 in the sweeping Minnesota case, which prosecutors have described as the largest pandemic-era fraud scheme in the country. The case centers on Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota nonprofit that channeled federal money intended to provide meals to children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a big fish,” Daniel Rosen, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, told CBS News. “Eidleh was a key leader and was responsible for bribing and recruiting business to steal from the American taxpayer.”

Rosen said Eidleh was “second in command” to Aimee Bock, the convicted ringleader of the scheme. Bock was recently sentenced to more than 40 years in prison.

Federal investigators allege Eidleh recruited operators into the scheme and collected bribes and kickbacks, sometimes disguised as consulting fees and routed through shell companies. According to prosecutors, he instructed restaurants and catering businesses to inflate receipts submitted to the Minnesota Department of Education for reimbursement and personally collected $5 million in bribes and kickbacks.

Al Jazeera reported that prosecutors also accuse Eidleh of setting up his own meal sites under the names of stand-in owners, falsely claiming they served thousands of children a day, and creating supplier firms to bill the government for food that was never delivered.

The indictment includes charges related to wire fraud, federal programs bribery, money laundering and conspiracy.

“This shows the global reach and outstretched arm of American law enforcement,” Christopher Dotson, FBI special agent in charge in Minneapolis, said. “Somalia is not the safe haven you may think it is.”

Somali authorities have not publicly commented on the arrest. A senior Somali official told Al Jazeera the government was concerned about citizens of other countries and dual nationals returning to Somalia to evade justice.

The Feeding Our Future investigation has led to charges against 79 people, most of Somali descent, according to CBS News. Of those, 66 have been convicted or pleaded guilty. In 2022, U.S. prosecutors initially charged 47 people over the roughly $250 million fraud, which exploited a federal child-nutrition program and was the largest pandemic-relief fraud prosecuted in the country to that point, Al Jazeera reported.

Dozens of others have also been charged in Minnesota in alleged schemes to defraud taxpayer-funded social service programs, including child care, housing and behavioral health programs. Rosen previously told CBS News the total amount of fraud in Minnesota could top $1 billion.

“The chapter for Feeding Our Future might be closing, but we’re still in the beginning of making sure we protect the American taxpayer,” Rosen said.

Al Jazeera reported that the Trump administration has pointed to the Feeding Our Future case while taking actions affecting Minnesota’s Somali community, including placing Somalia on a travel-ban list in 2025 and moving in January to end Temporary Protected Status for about 1,100 Somalis. The outlet reported that a federal judge blocked the termination in March and that the legal fight continues.