A man who ran a fraudulent child nutrition meal site out of a small storefront restaurant in downtown Willmar has been sentenced to five years in federal prison, after claiming his operation served 3,000 children a day, seven days a week — a figure investigators say bore almost no resemblance to reality. Abdikadir Ainanshe Mohamud must turn himself in to authorities by October 20, 2026, after a court granted his motion for self-surrender.
Mohamud ran what was known as the Stigma-Free meal site in Willmar, a west-central Minnesota city of about 21,000 people, according to FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul. He was indicted in September 2022 on charges of wire fraud, federal programs bribery and money laundering, and the operation ultimately claimed to have served roughly 1.6 million meals to children in the city. Prosecutors say the Stigma-Free operation received more than $4 million in fraudulent federal child nutrition program funds, and Mohamud was ordered to pay more than $3 million in restitution along with two years of supervised release.
A Storefront Deal That Ballooned Into Millions
The scheme traced back to Faafan Restaurant, a small storefront eatery in downtown Willmar. Federal prosecutors say Mohamud approached the restaurant's owner in October 2020, offering $40,000 a month to use the space as a site location, and ultimately paid $570,000 in 2021 to overreport meals — the owner was not accused of any criminal wrongdoing, according to KARE 11. Court records reviewed by KFGO show Mohamud pleaded guilty in March 2025, admitting he created a shell vendor called Tunyar Trading and funneled more than $2.5 million in federal child nutrition funding to himself and co-conspirators.
Those same court records show Mohamud paid over $225,000 in bribes and kickbacks from Tunyar Trading to Feeding Our Future employee Abdikerm Eidleh, and routed fraud proceeds to a company called Five A's Projects LLC to help acquire the former Kelly's 19th Hole bar and restaurant in Brooklyn Park, per the same KFGO report. The numbers behind the Willmar site were staggering on their face: the claimed 1.6 million meals worked out to 2,000 children fed daily, nearly half of all students enrolled in Willmar Public Schools. Yet an analysis of charging documents by News From The States found federal investigators could match only 33 names on submitted attendance rosters to actual students.
Part of a Statewide Network Sponsored by Feeding Our Future
The Stigma-Free site in Willmar didn't operate on its own. It ran under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future, and was part of Stigma-Free International, a nonprofit that the U.S. Department of Justice says was originally incorporated in August 2019 by Minneapolis City Council Member Jamal Osman before co-conspirator Ahmed Mohamed Artan acquired it in October 2020 to expand the meal-site scheme statewide. Osman has not been charged, but his former nonprofit was repurposed by the defendants, per the Department of Justice.
Artan, who oversaw Stigma-Free International's statewide network claiming nearly 5 million meals, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in June 2025 and was sentenced last month to 33 months in federal prison, with $666,422 in restitution ordered. He was identified as Defendant No. 8 among 80 individuals charged in the broader investigation, according to the Department of Justice.
How the Pandemic Opened the Door
The fraud was made possible in part by emergency changes to federal rules. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture waived standard child nutrition program requirements, suspending the rule that children eat together in person and allowing commercial restaurants to participate in the program — creating regulatory gaps that fraud rings across the state exploited, according to state child nutrition administrators cited by MPR News.
A June 2024 special review by the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor concluded that the Minnesota Department of Education showed inadequate oversight and failed to act on early warning signs, creating openings for Feeding Our Future's fraudulent meal claims to go unchecked. Whether state officials could or should have caught the scheme sooner remains an open question, one the Legislative Auditor's report raised but did not fully resolve.
Reputational Fallout in a Growing Immigrant Community
Willmar has seen a growing Somali American population since 2002, and local immigrant business leaders expressed deep concern over the city's reputation being tied to the federal fraud case once indictments were unsealed, KARE 11 reported after interviewing downtown Willmar merchants. Legitimate business owners in the city found themselves facing scrutiny by association, even though only Mohamud and his co-conspirators were accused of wrongdoing.
Mohamud's case is one piece of a much larger prosecution. Prosecutors say people involved in the Feeding Our Future scheme defrauded the government of roughly $250 million in USDA funds by opening hundreds of supposed meal sites for children during the pandemic, with many claiming to feed thousands of kids a day. As of late 2025, federal authorities had charged 79 individuals in the scheme, which the Department of Justice designated the largest pandemic relief fraud case in the nation, yielding over 60 guilty pleas and seven trial convictions.
Where Mohamud Fits Among Other Convictions
Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock was convicted in the scheme in 2025 and sentenced to 40 years; she is appealing both her conviction and sentence. Hoodline has reported on Bock speaking from jail after her conviction, and has followed several other Minnesota defendants tied to the same Stigma-Free International network, including a Lakeville man who ran a fraudulent site in Mankato and was sentenced last month, and a Columbia Heights man hit with 43 months earlier this year for laundering money through phantom meal sites.
Mohamud's five-year sentence adds to a growing list of prison terms handed down as federal prosecutors continue working through the roughly 80 people charged in the sprawling case. He is required to surrender to authorities by October 20.
