ST. PAUL — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - Minnesota), published as received.
ST. PAUL – Abdirashid Bixi Dool, age 36, was charged in a seven-count indictment with wire fraud and money laundering for his participation in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, announced U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen. Dool made his initial appearance this afternoon in federal court. Dool is the 78th defendant charged in the largest Covid-19 fraud scheme in the country.
Dool co-operated and served on the boards of two Minnesota non-profits, Bilaal Mosque Inc. and Multicultural Resource Center Inc (MRC). Dool also served as the President of MRC. Through those companies, Dool and a second person identified in the indictment as “Conspirator A” participated in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. Dool and Conspirator A purported to operate two food sites—the Bilaal food site in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, and the MRC food site in Moorhead, Minnesota.
As set forth in the indictment, at those sites, Dool falsely claimed to be serving over 40,000 meals to children every week. Through the Bilaal site alone, Dool claimed to serve 6,000 meals to children every day, seven days a week. That daily figure is more than double the entire population—children and adults—of the outstate town that is home is Bilaal. In support of his false claims, Dool submitted fraudulent invoices, purporting to detail the food purchased by Bilaal and MRC to feed hungry children. In reality, Dool purchased very little food. Dool also submitted phony rosters purporting to list the names of the hungry children who he fed at his meal sites. These rosters were also fake.
Between March 2021 and February 2022, Bilaal and MRC received about $1.1 million in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds from Feeding Our Future. However, little of this money was used by Dool to purchase food. Instead, Dool and Conspirator A laundered most of the taxpayer dollars to their families and to themselves. Dool used his cut of the fraud proceeds to travel and to buy real estate in Minnesota.
This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph H. Thompson, Harry M. Jacobs, and Daniel W. Bobier are prosecuting the case.
An indictment is merely an allegation, and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
