As U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel delivered the first sentence to come down in the 70-person federal food aid fraud case, she concluded that only one reason exists for a massive plot to steal money meant to feed needy children.
“At a time when the world was at its most vulnerable, you decided not to be a helper but to be a thief,” Brasel told Mohamed Jama Ismail as she sentenced him to 12 years in prison Tuesday.
“I can think of no motive other than pure, unmitigated greed.”
Ismail, 51, of Savage, was convicted in June of three counts — conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering and wire fraud — and was one of seven to stand trial in the first Feeding Our Future meal fraud case to go to trial. Prosecutors have called it one of the largest fraud schemes ever perpetrated in Minnesota — and “the single largest COVID-19 fraud scheme in the country.”
Ismail co-owned Empire Cuisine & Market in Shakopee alongside co-defendant Abdiaziz Farah, whom prosecutors called the scheme’s ringleader. In total, Ismail and his co-defendants were found responsible for more than $40 million in fraud proceeds on the backs of phony invoices, rosters of made-up children’s names and improbably high meal count forms.
Prosecutors said that Ismail personally took home more than $2 million from the scheme in one year. From November 2020 to January 2022, he withdrew $170,000 in cash from ATMs, bought more than $11,000 in firearms and accessories and used more than $130,000 of the money to pay off his home mortgage. Ismail also sent more than $400,000 to China and owns real estate in both Kenya and Somalia.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson argued that Ismail would “leave prison a wealthy man” based on the many assets he stashed out of the U.S. government’s reach.
Ismail was also previously convicted and served a seven-month jail sentence for passport fraud committed after agents searched his home as part of this investigation in January 2022. Ismail and Farah, their respective passports having been seized, lied on application forms to falsely claim that they lost their old travel documents. FBI agents later arrested Ismail at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in April 2022 as he attempted to board a flight bound for Kenya.