Key Facts — All Alleged
| |
|---|
| Who | Not specified |
| Amount | Not disclosed |
| Location | Not specified |
| Program | Not specified |
| Status | Alleged |
Take Action
Contact your representative about fraud in .
American taxpayers deserve accountability. If this investigation concerns you, make your voice heard.
Sample Letter to Your Representative
Dear [Representative Name],
I am writing as a concerned taxpayer regarding alleged fraud in . Recent independent investigations have brought to light troubling patterns of waste and abuse involving taxpayer-funded programs.
I urge your office to:
- Investigate the allegations of fraud documented in this and related reports
- Support stronger oversight and accountability measures for federal and state funding
- Ensure that taxpayer dollars are protected from fraud, waste, and abuse
- Provide transparency on how these programs are being monitored
Our tax dollars should serve their intended purpose — not line the pockets of bad actors. I look forward to your response and action on this matter.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
Find Your Representative | Find Your Senators
Full Investigation Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. May contain errors.
thank you thank you exactly like to share a punch situation she’s got back even technically I don’t know it’s not working for me [Music] foreign foreign good morning last fall we announced charges against 50 people in what has become known as the feeding our future fraud at the time we explained that the defendants were charged with stealing more than 250 million dollars meant to feed needy children in Minnesota we also said that there would be more charges to come today I’m here with my law enforcement Partners to announce charges against 10 more defendants bringing the total number of defendants in these cases to 50 to 60. while the defendants we announced today are new and some of the tactics they used are specific to how they executed the scheme the song of the feeding our future Scandal Remains the Same these defendants just like the first 50 announced last fall y claimed to be feeding thousands of children a day they submitted false reimbursement sheets with phony names of children and often use false invoices to make it appear as though they were purchasing large amounts of food when they were not just like the first group of defendants those charged today spent much of the money they stole on themselves buying property luxury vehicles and in one case an aircraft I cannot overstate the work that the dedicated federal agents accountants and paralegals from the FBI IRS and postal inspection service are continuing to do on a daily basis I am proud to be joined today by our federal partners Alvin Winston the special agent in charge of the FBI Justin Campbell the special agent in charge of the IRS and Steve Hodges postal inspection service assistant inspector in charge our work is not done and we expect to bring more charges in the future this slide shows the 47 defendants charged in September of 2022. shortly after this date we brought charges against three additional defendants bringing the total for 2022 of people charged to 50. today we announced 10 new defendants in separate indictments and informations as you see on the slide as you know we file an information when we expect that the defendant will be pleading guilty these defendants on this slide are alleged to have operated fraudulent food sites in Pelican Rapids Faribault Burnsville Minnetonka Bloomington Minneapolis and Saint Paul in the middle you see the name kosarjama this Jama provides a good insight into how these defendants carried out the scheme Ms Jama claimed to operate feeding sites in a number of towns in Minnesota one of which was Pelican Rapids which I will highlight this morning Pelican Rapids is a small town in North Central Minnesota with a population of about 2500. but Ms Jama claimed to be serving about 2 560 meals a day to Children needy children in Pelican Rapids and in case you haven’t done the math that means that she claims to be feeding everybody who lived in Pelican Rapids every day whether they were children or not whether they were needy or not surprising this is an intricate part of her fraud so what do we know and what is alleged about Ms Jama first of all she wasn’t serving food this Jama used phony invoices that she got from others to make it appear as though she was buying food for these 2560 people second of all there were in fact no children being served none of the children listed on our reimbursement forms matched the enrolled children in the schools in Pelican Rapids which you can imagine was also less than 2500. in addition she reached out to a friend to ask her to invent more names as the scheme went on and finally perhaps most brazenly compared to other defendants she did not even have a site at which she claimed to be serving food as you recall from the original charges that we brought in September the individuals often rented storefronts or small restaurants to make it appear as though they were serving food to the children that they claimed on their reimbursement forms Ms Jama did not even do that she forged a phony lease and submitted it with her application to make it appear as though she was serving food out of a location in Pelican Rapids which she was not and then finally his Jama from all of her sites that she operated in Minnesota obtained a little over 3.7 million dollars from the federal food programs now I previously described this as a Brazen scheme of Staggering proportions and I would suggest that the allegations against Ms Yama put the exclamation point to that description next how did these new defendants the ten new defendants spend the money spend the fraudulent proceeds that they obtained many purchased luxury vehicles Teslas and Infinities and other cars others took luxury vacations and paid for travel at high priced resorts one defendant put down about a quarter of a million dollars on an aircraft to be delivered to Kenya on his behalf many purchased real estate including a very large tract of land in Minnesota and then finally and this one is hard to describe but you’ll understand it one defendant laundered his funds by purchasing a laundromat what is the status of this investigation to date so back in September of 2022 we announced that we had seized about 50 million dollars worth of property fraudulently obtained by the defendants that number is over 66.6 million now and climbing this includes property bank accounts real estate and over four million dollars worth of vehicles that we have seized or Frozen to date we have charged as of today 60 defendants in this ever-growing scandal six have pled guilty so far with more to come and as I’ve said before our investigation continues and we expect more charges in the future I will take some questions I am not not surprising yes so some people have pled guilty and then we’ve announced additional charges so as people plead guilty they get removed from indictments typically Matt it’s growing and it’ll continue to grow where we’re going to have more information on that coming it’s we’ve got to make sure we’re not double counting as new people are added but that their numbers were previously included but it’s up from the 250 that it was before I go yes go ahead I think those were the exact words I I will have more information on that we hope to yeah we’ll have more on information on that coming Scott some and it’s described in the indictment indictments yes before I go back to you Matt just want to make sure can’t discuss cooperation by these or any defendants and then wait let’s go back and then and then I’ll get to you on how many of these people are caught or how many might be overseas if any no one’s overseas Court yes and either today or tomorrow we’ll get that information to you everybody’s going to make a first appearance before a Magistrate Judge who will then decide whether they’re held or not yes that’ll be determined that each individual’s initial appearance when you say involved I’m sorry so we have 60 defendants have been charged to date and we’re gonna we expect more charges coming I cannot tell us where are we as far as the end in the beginning you know when you’re not are we at the halfway point or what are we looking at here where does this case stand we’ve got more work to do and we’re going to be bringing more charges if I try to put you on a spectrum of where we are I probably would be inaccurate and I don’t want to do that one more maybe or two more I’m not going to comment on this on that at this time maybe at a future time another thing I won’t comment on but good question thanks as you can see we’re running out of things that I can comment on any further advice thank you all for coming and we’ll see you at the next one I don’t believe we’ve had sentencing hearings not yet that’s okay foreign foreign [Music]