The Department of Justice charged 47 people with defrauding a federal program that provided food to needy children during the Corona epidemic, in a total amount of 250 million dollars
US federal prosecutors said 47 defendants – a network of individuals and organizations associated with Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota-based nonprofit, allegedly spent fraudulently obtained federal pandemic funds on luxury cars, homes and other personal purchases.
The alleged scheme centered on the federal Child Nutrition Program, which is supposed to provide free meals to children of low-income families. Congress greatly expanded the program during the pandemic, including by allowing a wider variety of organizations to distribute food in a wider variety of locations.
The changes in federal law opened the door for Feeding Our Future to play a bigger role in distributing meals, the Justice Department claims, and the group distributed more than $200 million during 2021. However, federal prosecutors alleged that the company’s founder and director, Amy Bok, oversaw about a widespread fraud scheme throughout Minnesota.
The company recruited people and companies who “fraudulently claimed that they were serving meals to thousands of children a day,” claim the plaintiffs. Some of the defendants set up straw companies to sign up for the program and serve as a site for distributing meals. The Justice Department alleges that the defendants submitted false names of children who received meals and false invoices for food purchases that never occurred. The company did not respond to the media.