#News The Somali migrant who owned Safari Restaurant was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for his role in the Feeding Our Future scheme that stole $250 million from taxpayers.
$44 million of that was specifically tied to the Restaurant. He now faces deportation.
This is the same restaurant that Rep. Ilhan Omar personally promoted in a May 2020 video as a place feeding kids and families every day, then just had a campaign event back in May. Owners donated to her campaign.
Salim Said, co-owner of the Minneapolis restaurant, was sentenced after a jury convicted him on all 21 counts for being the “undisputed architect” in the scheme that stole from hungry kids.
Judge Nancy Brasel also gave him three years of supervised release, and ordered forfeiture of
🔷️$7.8 million,
🔷️A Chevrolet Silverado,
🔷️A Mercedes-Benz,
🔷️Real estate in Minneapolis and Plymouth, and
🔷️A commercial building in Columbus, Ohio.
Because Said is a legal permanent resident, he could face deportation after his prison term.
Prosecutors say Safari Restaurant stood “alone at the top of the mountain” of recipients. #minneapolis
At the height of the scheme, Said personally submitted claims for 6,000 meals a day at the south Minneapolis location.
FBI cameras, however, showed an average of about 40 people a day stopping to pick up food.
“The defendant and his sites did not serve thousands of children; he served a calculated, lucrative lie,” prosecutors wrote.
Over 21 months he and co-conspirators submitted thousands of false reimbursements claims through Feeding Our Future, Aimee Bock’s nonprofit that sponsored the sites.
The overall scheme is the largest pandemic-era fraud case in history, involving more than 80 defendants (mostly Somali migrants) and $250 million in losses from the federal Child Nutrition Program.
Before the pandemic, Said’s restaurant income was $30,000 a year.
Once enrolled in April 2020, he and associates expanded through additional sites.
Prosecutors said he paid bribes, including using the $310,000 purchase of a non-functioning childcare center from Bock as a disguised kickback, and more than $100,000 in kickbacks to a Feeding Our Future employee later arrested in Somalia.
The money funded shopping sprees, high-end vehicles (including the Mercedes and an $87,000 custom Chevrolet Silverado), commercial property on Park Avenue in Minneapolis, and the Plymouth home with the indoor basketball court.
He had a prior felony fraud-related conviction in Indiana from 2011, which the judge cited as an aggravating factor.
Judge Brasel told him:
“You took more than taxpayer money to enrich yourself. You took the reputation of our state down with you. It is my hope that one day the words ‘Minnesota’ and ‘fraud’ will not be spoken in the same sentence, but I fear that day is a long way off.”
His lawyer asked for 12 years; prosecutors wanted 40. The sentence is the third-longest so far among more than 30 people sentenced in the case; Bock received nearly 42 years.
In early May 2020 Omar stood at the restaurant and recorded a video speaking in Somali.
Omar also celebrated her 2018 Democratic primary victory at the same restaurant.
Owners of the restaurant donated to Omar’s campaign.
What do you think? Should the feds start investigating how much of a role Omar had in the Feeding Our Future scheme due to her relationship with the Somali migrant fraudster who was just sentenced to 30 years in prison?
