Updated 1:30 p.m.
Federal authorities on Tuesday charged 47 people in what they described as the country’s largest COVID-19 funding scam, alleging an elaborate operation that stole at least $250 million in federal funds meant to feed needy children but that went instead to buy cars, luxury goods, jewelry and property in the United States, Kenya and Turkey.
The alleged scheme was centered around Feeding our Future, a Minnesota nonprofit that prosecutors say was a conduit for illegal payments and whose leaders received kickbacks. Charges include conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and bribery.
“These individuals believed they could steal tens of millions of dollars from federal nutrition programs,” U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Andrew Luger told reporters. “Their goal was to make as much money for themselves as they could while falsely claiming to feed children in the pandemic.”
He called it a “brazen scheme of staggering proportions” that faked some 125 million meals.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Andrew Luger (center) shows off photos of falsified meal cards that were used to claim thousands of children were participating in the program.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Luger said the work involved creating false rosters of children, sometimes with the use of an online website that generated random names. Entities around the state would then be paid for meals they never served to children who didn’t exist.
In some cases, he said, groups were claiming to…
