US arrest in Mogadishu advances Minnesota pandemic fraud case
Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh, accused in a $250m child-nutrition fraud case, was detained after FBI cooperation with Somali intelligence.
By Daniel Okafor · Business Editor
3 min read
US authorities have arrested Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh in Mogadishu, advancing a Minnesota fraud prosecution that has reached Somalia. The Justice Department said the arrest followed cooperation between the FBI and Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency.
Eidleh, 42, was detained on Thursday in the Somali capital, and US officials announced the arrest on Friday, according to Al Jazeera. US and Somali authorities have not said how he was found.
Prosecutors say Eidleh was a leading figure in a scheme tied to Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota nonprofit that handled federal child-nutrition money during the COVID-19 pandemic. They describe him as the alleged second-in-command to Aimee Bock, whom Al Jazeera identified as the convicted leader of the operation.
Allegations in the case
US prosecutors have accused Eidleh of recruiting operators into the fraud and taking bribes and kickbacks. They allege the payments were often presented as consulting fees and routed through shell companies.
Prosecutors also say Eidleh created meal sites under the names of stand-in owners, claimed those sites were serving thousands of children each day, and used supplier companies to bill the government for food that was not provided. Eidleh had fled to Somalia as the case unfolded, according to Al Jazeera.
US Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen told CBS News that Eidleh was “a big fish” and said he was a key participant who recruited businesses and paid bribes to steal public funds.
The broader Feeding Our Future case began in 2022, when US authorities charged 47 people in what they described as a roughly $250m fraud involving a federal child-nutrition program. Al Jazeera reported that it was the largest pandemic-relief fraud prosecuted in the United States at that point.
Bock was recently sentenced to more than 40 years in prison, according to Al Jazeera.
Political fallout in Minnesota
The case has also drawn attention to Minnesota’s Somali community. Al Jazeera reported that the Trump administration has used the Feeding Our Future prosecution in attacks on Somali residents in Minnesota, home to the largest Somali community in the United States.
About 84,000 people of Somali descent live in the Minneapolis-St Paul area, and most were born in the United States or are naturalised citizens, according to Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera reported that Somalia was included in a travel ban after Donald Trump returned to office in 2025. Trump has also threatened to revoke the citizenship of naturalised Americans convicted of fraud, according to the outlet.
Late last year, Trump described Somalis as “garbage” during attacks on Somalia and Somali Americans, Al Jazeera reported. Federal immigration enforcement later increased in the Minneapolis area, where Al Jazeera said ICE agents killed Renee Good in early January and nurse Alex Pretti weeks later, leading to weeks of protests.
In January, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem moved to end Temporary Protected Status for about 1,100 Somalis, according to Al Jazeera. The protection, which shields people from deportation to dangerous home countries, had been in place for Somalis since 1991; a federal judge blocked the termination in March, and the case remains in court.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.