The defendants allegedly carried out a plot to steal $250 million from a nutrition program meant to serve needy children in Minnesota. Officials called it a 'brazen scheme of staggering proportions.'
that defendant Aimee Bock of Apple Valley Minnesota was the mastermind behind the plot. Bock is the founder and executive director of Feeding Our Future, which actually did serve federally funded meals to underserved kids in the Twin Cities prior to the pandemic. According to the DOJ, Bock recruited other individuals to create fake sites and falsely claim they were feeding needy children under her group's sponsorship.
Records show that Feeding Our Future went from receiving and disbursing approximately $3.4 million in federal funds in 2019 to nearly $200 million in 2021. The defendants used the proceeds of their fraudulent scheme, according to the DOJ, to purchase luxury vehicles, to fund international travel and to buy residential and commercial real estate in Minnesota, Ohio and Kentucky and in Kenya and Turkey.Vanessa Romo is a reporter for NPR's News Desk.
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