Where the money is
What the record documents as seized or ordered repaid, where it says some of the money went, and what it does not yet account for.
How much has been recovered
The seizure figure is a prosecutor's December 2025 estimate for the Feeding Our Future cases. About $30 million of it is cash from bank accounts, and the rest is real estate and vehicles that must be sold before the government sees the money. The estimate was $50 million in October 2024 and moves as assets are found, valued, and sold.
What has been seized or ordered repaid
Each row is one documented asset or judgment, with its legal status, scope, and record date. Rows overlap, so do not add them.
Documented seizure and forfeiture objects in the Feeding Our Future cases
Stated as a $60 to $70 million range, with about $30 million cash from bank accounts and the rest real estate and vehicles. It is an estimate that moves with asset values, not an accounting.
$6,347.85 and $179,455.87 from the accounts and $13,462 in cash seized January 20, 2022.
The order lists the objects but does not state their value. No amount is invented here.
Itemized assets include bank funds, properties in Minneapolis, Plymouth, and Columbus, Ohio, two vehicles, and seized goods.
A liability, not money in hand. How it is collected is described below, under how the government collects.
Money judgments overlap the itemized assets credited against them, person-level orders overlap the collective seizure estimate, and the restitution order is a liability rather than money in hand.
How much is unaccounted for
These two dated figures are shown side by side.
The court attributed $242M in losses at the May 2026 Feeding Our Future sentencing. Prosecutors put seizures at $60M–$70M as of December 2025. That leaves roughly $172 to $182 million of the attributed loss not reflected in published seizure reporting.
A seizure estimate and a court’s loss figure are measured differently and on different dates, so the share is a rough comparison, not a recovery rate. The gap is not a finding that the money exists somewhere recoverable. Prosecutors have said some funds were spent on unrecoverable travel, entertainment, and services, and asset values fluctuate.
Four defendants left the country or stopped appearing in court. Two of them, Abdikerm Eidleh and Said Ereg, have since come back. See Defendants who left the country.
Where records say it went
These are examples from the record, not a full accounting.
Real estate. Per court records, this includes metro-area homes, lakefront property in Minnesota, and properties in other states including Ohio and Kentucky. Prosecutors also described recovering a resort in Kenya and property in Turkey.
Amounts not published as a totalSecondary source:Associated PressVehicles and luxury goods. Prosecutors cited more than $88,000 on a GMC truck, $93,250 on a Porsche, over $100,000 on a Mercedes, and seized designer goods listed in forfeiture orders.
Item examples only, with no total publishedSecondary source:Associated PressSpending that cannot be recovered. Prosecutors described travel, entertainment, and services, including a honeymoon at a private villa in the Maldives and a suite at a Timberwolves game.
Amount not publishedSecondary source:Associated Press
The money that left the country
This part shows how far the record follows the money before it stops. It covers the methods first, then the transactions, then what the record says the proceeds became.
How the money moved, per the charging documents
Bank wires went from US business accounts to banks and businesses abroad in Kenya, China, Turkey, and, per prosecutors’ trial opening, the United Arab Emirates. Examples are listed below.
Money also moved through licensed money-transfer services and money orders. The Sheikh indictment quotes a $300,000 transfer receipt with the purpose recorded as "family support" and the source as "salary."
The Sheikh indictment alleges proceeds were concealed partly through bulk cash smuggling, citing photographs of cash and banker’s boxes.
Shell companies and "consulting fees." The FBI’s case summary describes kickbacks paid in cash or disguised as consulting fees paid to shell companies. At the second trial, more than $50 million of the $103 million tracked went through shell companies the defendants controlled, per a Star Tribune review of the bank-record evidence.
What about hawala?
No Feeding Our Future charging document, Justice Department release, or trial-testimony report in the records reviewed names a hawala operator or remittance company as a laundering participant. The mechanisms charged are the ones above. The word appears once in the Feeding Our Future record, in a different role. The Justice Department’s August 2025 release on Said Farah’s juror-bribery plea says the bribe cash came “from multiple individuals as well as a Hawala located near the Karmel Mall.” That hawala is not accused of wrongdoing. In January 2026 the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) ordered money transmitters in Hennepin and Ramsey counties to report whether a transaction involves hawala networks settled by cash courier. That order covers Minnesota benefits fraud broadly, not this case. Minneapolis money-transfer storefronts are licensed money-service businesses and have not been accused of wrongdoing in these cases.
As of October 11, 2026.
US accounts holding program proceeds Accounts in Kenya. Multiple transfers, per a CBS News review of trial-exhibit files.
Prosecutors said at Abdiaziz Farah’s sentencing that the government cannot claw back the money he sent to Kenya and that he was unwilling to return it voluntarily. That statement is about Farah’s Kenya money, not a rule for every overseas dollar.
Farah, via the Amana Money Transfer company Ahmednaji Sheikh in Kenya. Money-transfer service. Alleged in the indictment. Sheikh is charged, not convicted, and presumed innocent..
Farah Sheikh. Bulk cash. The indictment cites a photo of the money. Alleged in the indictment. Sheikh is charged, not convicted, and presumed innocent..
Farah Sheikh. Cash in banker’s boxes. The indictment cites a photo. Alleged in the indictment. Sheikh is charged, not convicted, and presumed innocent..
Minneapolis Kenya. Transfer receipt with the purpose recorded as “family support” and the source as “salary”.
Farah Sheikh. Total Sheikh reported by text having received “in the prior days,” which may include transfers listed above. Alleged in the indictment. Sheikh is charged, not convicted, and presumed innocent..
Abdiaziz Farah (convicted), with a co-defendant the jury acquitted of all charges in June 2024 Kenya, for five condominium units in a Nairobi building under construction. Transfers described by prosecutors at the first trial. The co-defendant prosecutors named with Farah was acquitted of every count. The jury’s verdict is the outcome, not the prosecutors’ description. This may overlap the $3 million total above, so the two are not added together.
Abdiaziz Farah Banks in China. Six wire transfers.
Officials told CBS News that tracing money routed through China can be an investigative black hole (CBS’s paraphrase). The characterization is theirs.
Said Ereg and Najmo Ahmed (Evergreen Grocery and Deli) Foreign textile and trading companies, including Shaoxing Aifan Textile Co. in China. Transfers alleged in the FBI’s fugitive notice. Ereg is charged, not convicted, and presumed innocent. Najmo Ahmed admitted moving at least $1,147,348 personally in her plea.
Liban Alishire, through his company Hoodo Properties Jaafar Jelle & Co., toward the Karibu Palms Resort in Diani Beach, Kenya. Wire, per his plea.
The resort the wire helped buy was forfeited in his January 2023 plea. The forfeited resort is listed below, under what it was spent on abroad.
The indented items are pieces of the nearly $3 million. They may overlap, and the record does not say whether they are all of it.
Kenyan outlets have published three itemized 2021 wire amounts to Capital View Properties, attributed to federal court filings. The amounts conflict across outlets, and the filed indictment does not itemize them, so they are left out. The rows above are what the indictment itself supports.
What it was spent on abroad
20 percent stake in Capital View Properties Ltd., a real-estate company
Status not publishedKenya
The indictment alleges Farah purchased the stake using fraud proceeds. No dollar figure is stated in the indictment, so none is shown here.
US forfeiture cannot reach Kenyan corporate holdings without Kenya’s cooperation. I have not found a published recovery status for this stake.
Ownership interest in an apartment building
Beyond reach, per prosecutorsSouth C neighborhood, Nairobi, Kenya
The indictment says Farah bought it with proceeds in April 2021.
Prosecutors said at Farah’s sentencing that his Kenya money cannot be clawed back. The apartment’s own status is not separately published.
Land purchase
Status not publishedMandera Town, Kenya, near the borders with Somalia and Ethiopia
The indictment alleges Sheikh helped Farah purchase the land with proceeds. No figure is stated.
I have not found a published recovery status for this land.
Karibu Palms Resort (Diani Beach) and a Nairobi apartment unit, forfeited by Liban Alishire
RecoveredKenya
Per Alishire’s January 2023 plea, proceeds wired through his company Hoodo Properties went toward the resort, and the apartment was purchased with proceeds. He agreed to forfeit both, plus a $712,084 money judgment.
The one documented case of a defendant agreeing to forfeit an overseas asset. Whether the forfeiture was completed and the property sold is not published in the records reviewed. It also appears above, under where records say it went.
Property on the Mediterranean coast
Status not publishedAlanya, Turkey
Court documents in Ayan Jama’s April 2024 plea state she used $356,795 in proceeds to buy the property. Court documents in Mustafa Jama’s case describe another Turkish coastal property. The original 2022 charging announcement described proceeds tied to the Brava restaurant network spent on property on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.
The forfeited assets listed in both pleas are US homes and bank accounts. The Turkish properties are not among them, and I have not found a published recovery status for them.
Investments and real estate
Beyond reach, per prosecutorsChina, Kenya, and Somalia
Prosecutors’ sentencing memo for Mohamed Jama Ismail says at least $850,000 in proceeds sits in Chinese investments and real estate in Kenya and Somalia.
Prosecutors wrote the money "may never be recovered" and that he "will leave prison a wealthy man." The characterization is theirs, and I have not found a separately published recovery status.
Did any of it fund terrorism?
The claim of concern
“It has gone overseas, and we are tracking that both to the Middle East and to Somalia to see what the uses of that have been.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, on Face the Nation
What investigators say
“Multiple federal investigators told CBS News there is no evidence taxpayer dollars were funneled to al Shabaab.”
CBS News, in the same report
“The vast majority of the money that these folks made went to spending on luxury items for themselves … There was never any evidence that this money went to fund terrorism.”
Andy Luger, former US Attorney for Minnesota
What the banks saw
One bank's documented detection, the federal review that followed four years later, and what the enforcement record does and does not contain.
One bank did, in 2021
At the 2025 Bock and Said trial, Bridgewater Bank’s head of compliance testified that the bank closed four accounts linked to Salim Said in July 2021. The bank had found millions moving between related accounts in large, round-dollar amounts, often to newly formed businesses with no clear operations. When the bank asked questions, the round-dollar transactions stopped. The bank found no legitimate business purpose and closed the accounts. By then about $24.5 million had passed through.
The federal retrospective came in 2026
In January 2026 the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an alert asking financial institutions to identify and report past and ongoing suspicious activity tied to Minnesota program fraud. Its red flags, such as recently established nonprofits suddenly receiving large federal reimbursements out of line with their profile, match this record. A companion Geographic Targeting Order required Hennepin and Ramsey county institutions to report international transfers of $3,000 or more from February 2026. FinCEN renewed it in August 2026 through February 6, 2027. Treasury said in January 2026 that four money services businesses were under investigation. Whether any suspicious-activity report was filed on a Feeding Our Future account is not public, because such reports are confidential by law.
The records reviewed contain no enforcement action, penalty, or public finding against a named bank for handling Feeding Our Future money.
Records reviewed: Enforcement releases from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Justice Department (DOJ) and US Attorney (District of Minnesota) releases in the Feeding Our Future cases, the trial coverage of the bank testimony, and the January 2026 Treasury announcements, as reviewed for this site’s research brief. As of October 11, 2026.
How the government collects
Separated by program, because child-nutrition and Medicaid recoveries are collected in different ways.
Child-nutrition cases (federal)
The Minnesota Attorney General settled a civil False Claims Act suit against Partners in Nutrition, the other large nonprofit sponsor, for $18,517,909.27 on September 24, 2026. The organization dissolves, and in the court filing it denies the allegations (per MPR News). The money returns to the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and then to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This is a state civil recovery, kept apart from the federal seizure estimate.
Seized assets move through preliminary and final forfeiture orders, then are sold, often at auction. Prosecutors note the process takes months or years and that recovered values change over time.
A restitution order works like a lien. Under federal law (18 U.S.C. 3613(b)) it lasts 20 years from the judgment or 20 years after the defendant’s release from prison, whichever is later. If the defendant dies, the estate is held responsible for any unpaid balance and the lien continues. Orders far exceed most defendants’ assets, so no one in the record expects the largest orders to be paid in full.
Prosecutors described recovering a resort in Kenya and property in Turkey, and court records describe funds moved abroad. The record documents specific recovered properties. It does not publish a total for money outside the United States.
Medicaid cases (state and federal)
The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) can withhold Medicaid payments during credible fraud investigations. The Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) found that a decades-old error in DHS administrative rules may limit its ability to suspend payments during kickback investigations.
The Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit brings state criminal cases with their own restitution, such as the $9.5 million MN Professional personal care assistance (PCA) case.
People charged but not convicted are presumed innocent, and amounts labeled alleged come from charging documents, not proven losses. Method and corrections