The details follow a pattern that has become grimly familiar in Minnesota: a business owner allegedly exploiting a federal benefits program, surveillance footage catching what state agencies apparently missed, and a dollar figure that lands in seven figures before anyone in a position of oversight noticed something was wrong.
Abdidwahid Mohamed, owner of Minnesota Food Grocery LLC, has been charged in Hennepin County after prosecutors say he defrauded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) out of more than $1.1 million using a scheme that investigators described as involving “a high degree of sophistication or planning” carried out “over a lengthy period of time.”
How the Scheme Allegedly Worked
According to the criminal complaint, Mohamed used EBT cards — the debit-style cards through which SNAP benefits are distributed to low-income households — registered to other people to make bulk purchases at Sam’s Club and Costco in 2021. He then transported the goods back to his own store and resold them for profit.
The scheme was not particularly subtle in execution. Hennepin County authorities observed Mohamed making purchases and followed him back to his store with the merchandise. Surveillance footage and GPS data corroborated the investigators’ observations.
The cardholders whose accounts were used presented their own damning evidence: many were out of the country during the period when purchases were allegedly made in their names. Others said they had simply never shopped at the stores where their cards were used.
The complaint placed Mohamed’s total EBT receipts at $1,141,082.
It is worth noting that this case was not initially identified by state oversight agencies. The fraud was first flagged by Walmart’s Global Investigation Team — a private retailer, not a government agency, that spotted something the state had apparently missed.
Mohamed faces up to 20 years in federal prison or a $100,000 fine if convicted.
‘Minneapolis Didn’t Become America’s Fraud Capital by Accident’
The political response to the charges was swift and pointed, particularly from Republicans who have spent years raising alarms about the state’s social services oversight infrastructure.
Dalia al-Aqidi, a Republican running for Congress in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District against Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., connected the individual case to what she described as a systemic failure of accountability.
“Minneapolis didn’t become America’s fraud capital by accident. It was earned. This week, it’s a grocer charged with running up $1.1 million in charges on other people’s EBT cards. Next week, it will be something else, but the bill always lands on the Minnesotans who actually pay taxes,” she told Fox News Digital.
She argued the human cost of fraud falls hardest on the people the programs are supposed to help.
“The cruel joke is that the money is here to really make a difference for people. It is just lining the wrong pockets and paying for luxury cars and houses on the other side of the world.”
She extended responsibility beyond the accused, naming Rep. Omar, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Gov. Tim Walz as officials she believes have failed to act with sufficient urgency.
“There has been talk about ending fraud in Minnesota for years. I am going to Washington to actually do it.”
Republican Lawmakers Add Their Voices
Two Minnesota Republican state senators echoed the criticism in comments to Fox News Digital.
State Sen. Mark Koran described the case as “yet another example of why Minnesota is target number one for fraudsters,” pointing specifically to the detail that it was a private retailer — not a state agency — that first detected the scheme.
“The sheer volume of welfare programs, combined with the inability of state agencies to detect obvious fraud is alarming. Once again, it was a private retailer, not the state, that uncovered this fraud scheme,” Koran said.
He also called for accountability beyond Mohamed himself.
“All individuals involved, including the people that sold their EBT cards to Abdi Mohamed, have to be fully prosecuted. People who come here to steal from hardworking Minnesota taxpayers deserve serious consequences.”
State Sen. Michael Holmstrom was blunter still, suggesting the brazenness of the alleged scheme reflects a calculated assessment that prosecution is unlikely.
“This may be the laziest one yet. We had this guy, Abdi Mohamed, and he named his scam company ‘Minnesota Food Grocery LLC.’ They aren’t even trying, because they have been conditioned to believe there are no consequences.”
A Familiar Pattern in Minnesota
The case arrives in the shadow of a far larger fraud scandal that has already drawn national attention. The Feeding Our Future case — in which prosecutors allege defendants fabricated meal programs and fraudulently claimed more than $250 million in federal pandemic-era food assistance funds — remains one of the most sprawling fraud prosecutions in Minnesota’s history.
Former acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson has suggested total fraud across various Minnesota programs could reach as high as $9 billion. Gov. Tim Walz testified before the House Oversight Committee in March 2026 as lawmakers pressed for accountability.
Walz’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the latest charges.
At the federal level, the Trump administration has been stepping up enforcement of SNAP fraud nationally. U.S. Agriculture Department officials and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. co-authored a Fox News op-ed in March describing the program’s vulnerability to exploitation and the need for systemic reform.
“Over time, however, SNAP has been taken advantage of, allowing many to game the system and leaving millions of vulnerable Americans without healthy, nutrient-dense food options,” they wrote.
Abdidwahid Mohamed allegedly built a seven-figure fraud operation out of a grocery store with a name so unremarkable it barely registers — and he allegedly did it using other people’s benefits cards to buy goods in bulk from stores that low-income cardholders would never be expected to frequent. The fraud was caught not by the agencies responsible for administering the program but by a private retailer’s investigation team. That detail — more than the dollar figure, more than the charges — is the one that Minnesota Republicans say tells the real story. The question now is whether the criminal case against Mohamed will be the beginning of a more comprehensive reckoning with the state’s oversight failures, or simply another line in a growing ledger.