St. Paul Feeding Our Future fraudster sentenced to nearly 3 years in federal prison

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press on Oct 1, 2026

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A St. Paul man who admitted to pocketing more than $1.6 million through the massive Feeding Our Future fraud scheme was sentenced Thursday to nearly three years in federal prison.

Abdi Nur Salah, 38, received his 33-month sentence in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis after pleading guilty to wire fraud as part of an agreement with the prosecution that included the dismissal of three other charges. He was taken into custody immediately after the hearing.

At the time of the scheme, Salah worked as a senior policy aide to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. He was fired when the allegations came to light.

Salah became the 31st defendant sentenced out of the 80 charged in the $250 million Feeding Our Future meal fraud scheme during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Minnesota.

The sentence handed down by Judge Nancy Brasel was higher than the 27-month term sought by prosecutors, who called Salah a “minor participant” in what is considered the single largest known pandemic-era fraud scheme in the U.S.

“Too many people, Salah included, participate in this kind of fraud because, as they see it, everyone else is doing it,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rebecca Klein and Matthew Murphy wrote in a presentencing court filing. “This cynical view must be stopped.”

Salah’s legal troubles are not over. He faces pending third-degree DWI and fifth-degree drug possession charges in Hennepin County stemming from incidents last summer while on release awaiting sentencing in the federal case.

Shell companies

According to federal prosecutors, Salah’s brother, Abdulkadir Nur Salah, was co-owner and operator of Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis, a site that received more than $16 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.

In October 2020, shortly after the Minnesota Department of Education announced it was no longer approving food sites run by restaurants and other for-profit businesses, Abdi Salah acquired a non-profit entity, Stigma-Free International, for use in carrying out the fraud scheme.

Salah transferred ownership of Stigma-Free International to his co-defendants, who used the non-profit to open program sites in St. Paul, St. Cloud, Willmar, Mankato and Waite Park.

Over the next year, Salah’s co-defendants claimed to have served nearly 5 million meals to children at the sites through fake meal count sheets and invoices, and attendance sheets with made-up names. They received over $10 million in program reimbursements.

Salah created two shell companies to receive and launder his share of the fraud proceeds, prosecutors said. He used the funds to purchase homes, real estate and businesses.

“Abdi Nur Salah and his co-conspirators used taxpayer money meant to support hungry children to buy themselves a life of luxury,” Benni Jonsson, an assistant special agent for the FBI’s criminal branch in Minnesota, said in a Thursday statement.

In defrauding the child nutrition program of more than $1.6 million, the statement continued, “what this defendant bought himself is a federal prison sentence. We will continue to bring fraudsters to justice and defend the American taxpayer.”

As part of his sentence, Salah was ordered to forfeit $1,063,255, which represents the amount he received through the wire fraud count to which he plead. A house in south Minneapolis and a former bar and restaurant in Brooklyn Park were also forfeited.

Federal authorities said that as of this summer they have recovered around $75 million of the $250 million lost to Feeding Our Future.

Lost ‘every shred of respect’

According to his attorney, Salah was born in Somalia in 1987 and came to the United States at age 6. After graduating from high school, he obtained a degree in finance from Metro State University and a masters degree in business administration from Texas A&M.

Between 2010 and 2021, Salah served on several boards and commissions, including the Confederation of Somali Community, Generation Next and the city of Minneapolis’ racial equity committee, his attorney, Brian Toder, said in a presentencing court filing.

Salah was a senior policy advisor to Frey from 2017 to March 2022, Toder said.

“Given his stature in the Somali community and ability to speak Somali, Swahili and Arabic languages, he was a tremendous asset to city government,” Toder said.

After the federal indictment, Toder said, Salah lost his job at the mayor’s office and “every shred of respect he previously earned” in the Somali community.

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