A Minneapolis daycare owner has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, adding another case to Minnesota's widening public-benefits fraud scandal.Fahima Egeh Mahamud, 50, CEO of Future Leaders Early Learning Center, allegedly submitted more than 13,000 false claims to Minnesota's Child Care Assistance Program between 2022 and 2025, according to prosecutors. Thousands of those claims required families to make co-payments before the daycare could receive federal reimbursements.BREAKING: Minneapolis daycare owner featured in Nick Shirley’s video Fahima Egeh Mahamud, CHARGED with wire fraud and conspiracy for allegedly stealing over $4.6 million through false claims to federal and state programs pic.twitter.com/OJ6plcQ7lq
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 21, 2026Prosecutors say Mahamud falsely certified that those family co-payments had been collected, allowing her daycare business to receive roughly $4.6 million in improper reimbursements.The case is not Mahamud's first encounter with federal fraud investigators. She was separately charged in February with wire fraud over her alleged role in the Feeding Our Future meal-fraud scheme, the sprawling Minnesota case in which federal prosecutors say taxpayer money meant to feed children during the pandemic was diverted through sham meal sites, inflated meal counts, rosters, invoices, and kickback arrangements.In that earlier case, prosecutors alleged that from December 2020 to July 2021, Mahamud claimed to serve tens of thousands of meals to children each month at the Future Leaders site, when the site allegedly served only a fraction of those meals.An attorney for Mahamud could not be reached for comment. Mahamud and all other defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.A Wider Minnesota Fraud CrackdownThe daycare charge comes as Minnesota faces a widening federal crackdown on alleged fraud across multiple state-administered programs. AP reported that, after former Feeding Our Future leader Aimee Bock was sentenced to nearly 42 years in prison, federal authorities announced a new batch of charges against 15 people accused of stealing from social-service programs administered through Minnesota's state government.AP said the new cases involve roughly $90 million across seven state-managed Medicaid programs. Those cases include Mahamud, whom AP identified as the former CEO of Future Leaders Early Learning Center. Prosecutors allege her organization was reimbursed about $4.6 million for services tied to people who did not make required co-payments.🚨 HOLY CRAP! The Trump DOJ has just announced a MASSIVE $90M FRAUD BUST in Tim Walz's Minnesota, with criminal charges being slapped on 15 defendants
