Sunday September 7, 2025
Photo: Shari L. Gross/Star Tribune via Getty Images
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn (HOL) — Federal prosecutors have charged a Burnsville woman with defrauding a child nutrition program out of nearly $1 million, making her the 75th defendant indicted in Minnesota’s sweeping Feeding Our Future scandal.
Muna Wais Fidhin, 44, was arrested Thursday on 10 counts, including wire fraud, federal program bribery and money laundering. Prosecutors say she enrolled her company, M5 Café, in the Federal Child Nutrition Program in 2020 under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future, the Minnesota nonprofit at the center of the case. She later registered a second entity, M5 Care, under another sponsor.
According to the indictment, Fidhin falsely claimed she was serving 500 children a day, seven days a week, across her sites. She reported more than 300,000 meals and sought roughly $1 million in reimbursements. In reality, prosecutors allege, few children were fed.
Instead, authorities say, Fidhin used the money to pay her mortgage, purchase a car, make international wire transfers and fund personal expenses. She also allegedly paid $27,000 in kickbacks to a Feeding Our Future employee to secure approval for her claims.
“With the 75th defendant charged in the Feeding Our Future scandal, the message could not be clearer,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson said. “Feeding Our Future is only one of the many frauds against the state we are pursuing.”
FBI Special Agent in Charge Alvin M. Winston Sr. said Fidhin and others charged “may have underestimated the FBI’s ability to identify, investigate and prosecute individuals who steal from taxpayers with funds intended for hungry children.”
Somali-language media have previously covered Muna Wais Fidhin as a political representative of Somaliland in the United States. She has also been described by diaspora outlets as linked to the Waddani opposition party.
The case stems from emergency pandemic-era changes to federal meal programs that allowed nonprofits to sponsor sites serving free food to children. Feeding Our Future, founded by Aimee Bock, grew from handling $3.4 million in 2019 to nearly $200 million in 2021. Bock was convicted earlier this year and is awaiting sentencing.
The Feeding Our Future investigation has become the largest COVID-19 fraud case in the United States, with federal authorities continuing to bring charges against those accused of exploiting the program.
