“We use nutrition programs to increase the access of young and old to healthy food.” This is what we read on the website of the non-profit organization “Feeding our Future”, founded by Aimee Bock and operating in Minnesota. The NGO’s goal was to feed low-income young people, as part of a federal program, the Child nutrition program, launched by Congress at the beginning of the pandemic to support families most in difficulty. The past is a must when speaking of “Feeding our Future” because in recent days the US Department of Justice has accused 48 people, all involved with the nutrition program, of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. A $ 250 million scam, the biggest pandemic fraud. The only thing to be fed was, according to the indictment, one’s checking account.
Among the defendants there is also the founder of the organization accused of having personally sent the requests for reimbursement and of having physically received the money. The system set up by the NGO consisted in the creation of various shell companies connected to it, which after a few days from the foundation asked for reimbursements for thousands of children, making the accusation suspicious. The FBI, which investigated the matter, said one of them shell companies in January 2021 it claimed to be serving meals to 300 children, while in February the number had risen to close to 3,300. This increase had brought in 3.6 million dollars (3.7 million euros), of which the majority, according to investigators, is ended up on the current accounts of the accused. Lists of children participating in the nutrition program were generated using the program listofrandomnames.com, a site in which it is enough to indicate a number and as many false names and surnames as the number indicated are created.
Aimee Bock said she served 100,000 meals a day and had a staff of 70. From 2018 to 2021, the reimbursements requested by «Feeding our Future» had gone from 307 thousand dollars to 198 million. The education department to which the NGO had to refer to obtain the payments had denounced the growth in reimbursements. On one occasion, the Department denied the request because it found the 5,000 meals a day that the association claimed to have served “not credible”.
Minnesota Attorney General Andrew Luger said in a press conference held on Wednesday that the defendants “tapped into a program designed to provide nutritious food to children in need during the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, they prioritized their greed, stealing more than a quarter of a billion dollars in federal funds to buy luxury cars, homes, jewelry and coastal resort properties overseas. Investigators found, in fact, properties in Kenya, Turkey and vacation homes in the lakes of Minnesota, all attributable to these companies. Aimee Bock’s lawyer refused to declare anything to the press “until I take note of the full accusation”