The fraud in Tim Walz’s Minnesota continues, as does the overall lawlessness of the Somali community that lives there.
Abdiaziz Shafii Farah was already serving 28 years in federal prison for his central role in the largest child nutrition fraud in American history — the $250 million “Feeding Our Future” scheme that looted a federally funded program designed to feed hungry children during the pandemic. If you thought that was the end of his story, you underestimated his audacity.
Shortly after jury selection began in his 2024 fraud trial, Farah decided the honest path to acquittal wasn’t working. So he tried to buy one instead. He and several associates — including his brother Said Shafii Farah, his younger brother Abdulkarim Shafii Farah, and co-conspirators Ladan Mohamed Ali and Abdimajid Mohamed Nur — researched the juror online, surveilled her home, and tracked her movements. On June 2, 2024, Ladan Ali showed up at the juror’s residence with a bag containing $120,000 in cash and a promise of more if she voted not guilty.
The juror reported it to law enforcement immediately. The following morning, when a court ordered Farah to surrender his phone, he factory-reset it to destroy evidence of his involvement before handing it over.
He was convicted anyway. And on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud added 120 months to the 28 years Farah was already serving. That’s 10 more years — on top of the sentence he was already facing — specifically for trying to corrupt the American justice system.
U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen delivered the right verdict on the verdict: “Tampering with a juror is an assault on the integrity of the courts and the foundation of our democracy. This sentence sends an unmistakable message that justice is not for sale.”
It needs to be an unmistakable message, because the “Feeding Our Future” network treated American institutions as commodities to be purchased from the beginning. The entire $250 million fraud was built on the premise that federal food assistance programs were too loosely monitored to resist systematic looting — that you could file fraudulent reimbursement claims for millions of meals that were never served, pocket the proceeds, launder the money, and walk away clean. Most of the participants did exactly that for years before the FBI caught up with them.
Farah’s mistake was assuming the courtroom was just another institution he could buy. It wasn’t. The juror he tried to bribe went straight to law enforcement. The evidence his phone wipe was designed to destroy was reconstructed anyway. And now the 70th defendant in this case has pleaded guilty while Farah himself is looking at a combined sentence that will keep him incarcerated well into old age.
The “Feeding Our Future” scheme stole from hungry children to enrich a criminal network. Then its ringleader tried to steal a verdict.
Both thefts have now been priced. The American justice system, it turns out, was not for sale after all.
