More than half a billion dollars was stolen from Minnesota nutrition and frontline worker programs under Gov. Tim Walz, the Democrat vice presidential nominee, in an enormous pandemic-era fraud scheme for which critics are calling him out. Fraudsters allegedly bought luxury cars, boats, jewelry, properties, and more with around $250 million stolen from the Federal Child Nutrition Program, ABC News reported of an audit report and court documents.
The crime ring used a nonprofit organization called “Feeding Our Future” to launder “millions of dollars in program funds that were intended as reimbursements for the cost of serving meals to children,” the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said when it indicted 47 people related to the scheme in September 2022.
As of August 2024, “at least 70” people were allegedly part of the “wide-ranging criminal conspiracy,” according to ABC. “Rather than feed children, the defendants enriched themselves by fraudulently misappropriating millions of dollars in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds,” federal prosecutors said. With the rise of coronavirus pandemic-related relief programs, Feeding Our Future reportedly went from receiving and disbursing around $3.
4 million in federal funds in 2019 to almost $200 million in 2021. When the indictments were first announced, FBI Director Christopher Wray called it the “largest pandemic relief fraud scheme yet,” and U.S.
Attorney Andrew M. Luger for the District of Minnesota said it.