Somali intelligence helps US arrest alleged ringleader of Minnesota fraud

US prosecutors have reached across the world to seize a leading suspect in a Minnesota fraud case, arresting him in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh, 42, was taken into custody on Thursday, with US authorities announcing the arrest on Friday. Eidleh is described as the alleged second-in-command to Aimee Bock, the convicted mastermind of a scheme built around Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota nonprofit that channeled federal money meant to feed needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bock was recently sentenced to more than 40 years in prison. In 2022, the US charged 47 people over a roughly $250 million fraud that exploited a federal child-nutrition program, the largest pandemic-relief fraud prosecuted in the country to that point.

According to prosecutors, Eidleh recruited operators into the scheme and collected bribes and kickbacks, often disguised as consulting fees and funneled through shell companies. He is accused of setting up his own meal sites under the names of stand-in owners, falsely claiming they were serving thousands of children a day, and inventing supplier firms to bill the government for food never delivered.

Neither US nor Somali officials have disclosed how Eidleh was located. However, the Department of Justice said his arrest was the result of cooperation between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency.

The Trump administration has seized on the Feeding Our Future case to target Minnesota’s Somali community, the largest in the country with about 84,000 people of Somali descent in the Minneapolis-St Paul area. Late last year, Trump described Somalis as "garbage" and later placed Somalia on a travel ban list. Federal immigration enforcement agents flooded the Minneapolis area, and two people were killed by ICE agents, igniting weeks of protest. In January, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem moved to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for about 1,100 Somalis, but a federal judge blocked the termination in March.