Feds arrest newest Feeding Our Future defendant at Twin Cities airport
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A federal judge on Tuesday ordered that the latest suspect arrested in the Feeding Our Future investigation remain jailed after allegedly trying to flee the country.
Prosecutors say that Hibo Daar of Eden Prairie bought an airline ticket to Dubai on the same day that federal agents searched the New Vision Foundation, a St. Paul nonprofit that allegedly operated fraudulent meal distribution sites.
FBI and IRS agents arrested Daar on Sunday evening at MSP Airport as she tried to board her flight. Daar is the 71st person charged in a years-long investigation into a fraud scheme centered around the defunct nonprofit Feeding our Future that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, according to federal prosecutors.
Daar is charged with wire fraud. She has not entered a plea.
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Investigators say lax oversight during the pandemic and COVID-era rule changes opened the floodgates to massive fraud in the Summer Food Service Program and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. When former U.S. Attorney Andy Luger announced charges against the first four dozen defendants in September 2022, he said it was the nation’s largest COVID-19 scam.
In a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday, federal prosecutors allege that Daar, 50, ran a phony meal distribution site called Northside Wellness Center under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future.
Northside allegedly collected nearly $1.8 million from Feeding Our Future after submitting fraudulent meal reimbursement claims. FBI forensic accountants say that Northside spent less than $2,000 of that money on food.
According to the criminal complaint, Daar allegedly received $110,000 in fraud proceeds herself. Northside Wellness also made large payments to others involved in the scheme, including $72,000 to Feeding Our Future employee Hadith Ahmed. Ahmed pleaded guilty in 2022, and testified at the first Feeding Our Future trial in 2024 that he set up a phony consulting company to collect kickbacks from meal site operators.
Prosecutors say that Northside claimed to have served “about 40,000 meals to children every week,” including 5,600 suppers and snacks every day during April 2021 from an address on E. Hennepin Ave. in Minneapolis.
A spreadsheet that prosecutors showed jurors earlier this year at the trial of Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock and restaurant owner Salim Said lists Northside among the 25 most prolific filers of fraudulent reimbursement requests. Investigators say the group submitted claims for 1,025,746 meals.
In the complaint, prosecutors allege that Northside used fraudulent invoices to back its reimbursement claims including one from Premuim [sic] Fresh Produce for nearly 3,000 gallons of milk.
During Daar’s initial court appearance Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Bobier said that prosecutors notified Daar last month through her attorney that she was a target of the investigation and might be charged.
On Thursday, federal agents executed a search warrant at the New Vision Foundation, a St. Paul nonprofit that also allegedly operated a fake meal site, and claimed to have served 1,052,874 meals. On the same day that MPR News and other outlets reported on the search, Bobier said that Daar bought an airline ticket to Dubai.
Daar is not an employee of the New Vision Foundation and the search warrant unsealed Thursday does not list her name. But it does mention a company called “Campus Trading & Supplies, LLC.” New Vision allegedly used phony invoices from Campus Trading to back its own fraudulent reimbursement claims.
Campus Trading’s address on the invoice included in the search warrant matches the same Eden Prairie apartment complex listed as the business address of Northside Wellness Center and Daar’s residence.
In fraud cases, prosecutors typically do not request pretrial detention. But Bobier argued that because Daar tried to leave the country, she presents a flight risk. Magistrate Judge David Schultz agreed, and ordered that Daar remain jailed until at least Friday, when she has a formal detention hearing.
Aaron Morrison, a federal public defender who represented Daar at her initial appearance, argued that Daar does not present a flight risk because she’s a U.S. citizen with extensive ties to the Twin Cities. Morrison added that if prosecutors were concerned about Daar fleeing the country, they should have filed charges sooner.
Of the 70 other defendants charged in the case since September 2022, 38 have pleaded guilty. Another seven — including ringleader Aimee Bock — were convicted at the second Feeding Our Future trial in March.
Bock and her co-defendants are jailed and awaiting sentencing. Five other defendants charged in indictment with Bock are due to face trial Aug. 11.
