A Feeding Our Future defendant arrested at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in late May has entered a plea for her role in the massive federal fraud investigation.
Hibo Daar, 51, of Eden Prairie pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in a Minneapolis federal courtroom Friday in connection with the $250 million fraud plot to swindle the U.S. government out of reimbursements meant to fund meals for low-income children.
According to the charges, Daar served as executive director of the Northside Wellness Center in Minneapolis and claimed to have given hundreds of thousands of meals to children. By April 2021, she requested reimbursement for about 5,600 meals per day. The charges noted she claimed to have served the exact same number of meals prepared for that day.
“[Meaning] there is no day on which Daar’s operation purportedly prepared more meals than they distributed,” the indictment said.
From November 2020 through January 2023, Northside Wellness Center received $1.78 million in reimbursements while under Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship. The indictment, however, said the Northside Wellness Center spent less than $2,000 on food.
On the same day news broke about a federal raid underway in St. Paul in a separate Feeding Our Future investigation, Daar is alleged to have booked a flight scheduled to leave three days later for the United Arab Emirates, with a layover in Amsterdam.
The trip included a return flight for June 2, but “individuals fleeing the country to avoid arrest or prosecution will often book round-trip airplane tickets to hide the fact that they do not intend to return to the United States,” prosecutors wrote in the indictment.
Authorities arrested Daar at MSP airport before she boarded.
