The recent capture in Somalia of the alleged number two player in the Feeding Our Future fraud marks a major step in the case that’s rocked local politics, made international headlines and triggered violent immigration enforcement.
Now comes the hard part: getting Abdikerm Eidleh over to the United States.
Doing so is no guarantee, according to legal and political experts who spoke to Sahan Journal.
Making matters more complicated is the fact that the United States and Somalia have no extradition treaty with each other, which would govern how the process works. President Donald Trump’s hostile rhetoric against the Somali community and his administration’s cuts to foreign aid to the country could also blur the matter.
Yet Somalia’s government remains a strategic ally with the United States, and both governments have generally cooperated with each other since Somalia started rebuilding itself after its civil war began in the 1990s, said Guled Kassim, who served as minister of posts and telecommunication for Somalia’s government in 2015 and 2016. Kassim’s father is the late Hussein Abdulkadir Kassim, who was a former minister in the Revolutionary Government of Somalia.
“[Our relationship] is pretty baked in,” said Kassim, who now runs the disaster relief housing company LakeShield Corp. in Mankato. “If there was a request made [for extradition], I think it would be taken very seriously.”
FBI credits Somalia intelligence in Eidleh’s arrest
The United States Attorney’s Office in Minnesota announced Eidleh’s apprehension on June 26, one day after authorities took him into custody in Mogadishu. It marked a big victory for federal authorities, who had charged Eidleh in late 2022 with several crimes for his alleged involvement in the fraud scheme.
Eidleh, 42, worked directly under then-Feeding Our Future Executive Director Aimee Bock, and allegedly recruited several business owners into the scheme, according to multiple witnesses who testified at Bock’s 2025 trial.
Yet federal authorities remained tight-lipped about how Eidleh was apprehended. In prepared statements, FBI Minneapolis Field Office Special Agent in Charge Christopher D. Dotson credited Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) “for their outstanding partnership in locating and apprehending Eidleh so he may be brought to justice.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the State Department declined to comment for this story. NISA did not return messages seeking comment.
Eidleh’s apprehension comes months after Somalia-based news outlets reported that Somali government officials are making efforts to improve their intelligence sharing with the United States. This included NISA Director General Mahad Mohamed Salad’s visit to Washington D.C. earlier this year, where he met with FBI and Central Intelligence Agency officials.
It also comes as the Trump administration has repeatedly enacted harsh measures against Somali residents here and abroad, including Operation Metro Surge, which began in December 2025 targeting Somali Minnesotans in the wake of national news about fraud traced back to some Somali defendants.
The operation ramped up dramatically in 2026, resulting in the fatal shooting of two Minnesotans, the wounding of a third and numerous cases of racial profiling, excessive use of force and the detention of United States citizens and children, among other issues.
The Trump administration also ended Temporary Protected Status for Somali residents who use the status to live legally in the United States. Last week, the United States government announced it will stop funding the United Nations support of an African Union-led peacekeeping mission to Somalia.
Trump also increased rhetoric earlier this year disparaging Somalis, calling them “garbage” and “crooks,” and stating that he wants Somali immigrants to leave the United States.
Trump’s actions against Somali residents in the United States and Somalia could add to tensions between the countries, because the Somali diaspora remains one of Somalia’s biggest financial supporters, Kassim said.
Despite all of this, the United States’ relationship with Somalia goes far back. Part of Somalia is still unstable and controlled by Al-Shabab, and Somalia relies on United States intelligence to undermine and strike the extremist group, Kassim said. Similarly, Somalia borders the Gulf of Aden, which connects to the Red Sea, a major global trading port.
Because of those factors, Kassim said, he doesn’t see any “major pullback” from the United States’ relationship with Somalia during Trump’s administration.
“I think there is public tension,” he said, “but both governments, by necessity, function in a cooperative way.”
How extraditions work
When the United States wants to extradite a suspect from a foreign country, the State Department makes a request through that other country’s court system, said Hamline University professor David Schultz, who teaches international law. The extradition treaty between both countries would govern the process, he added.
But the United States and Somalia lack an extradition treaty, which means that neither country has established rules and regulations as to how Eidleh’s extradition should play out. Instead, they’ll have to hammer those out in negotiations.
Former Hennepin County prosecutor Amy Sweasy said the fact that Somali authorities took Eidleh into custody suggests that there’s a relationship between Somali and U.S. intelligence, but perhaps only to a point.
“Just because you have the cooperation that got him into custody in the first place, does not necessarily mean that they’re going to do any more with that,” Sweasy told Sahan Journal.
Protestors in Mogadishu rallied last week opposing Eidleh’s potential extradition, and demanded instead that he be tried in Somali courts for his alleged crimes committed in the United States.
Dozens of protesters carried a banner with a picture of Eidleh’s face and the words, “he needs justice” in Somali, while marching in Mogadishu after news of his arrest broke, according to a video posted by Mogadishu-based Shabelle Media Network.
“The man named Abdikarim Abdullahi Eidleh Hashi, the other day while he was at his home, was picked up by authorities and we still don’t know where he is being held,” one elder said in the video. “We are requesting from our government, that if he did anything wrong and is found to have done something wrong, he should be tried in a court in his motherland.
Despite the Trump administration’s hostility toward Somalia and Somali residents in the United States, it could still be in Somalia’s interest to send Eidleh to the United States, Schultz said.
Foreign aid could be offered to reach an extradition agreement, Schulz said, and so could a promise from the United States to extradite Somali nationals who were charged with crimes in Somalia and who fled to the United States.
Added Sweasy: “Something could be negotiated. That’s what you’re left with when you don’t have an extradition treaty.”
Federal prosecutors indicted 48 people the same day Eidleh was indicted in September 2022. Court documents indicated that prosecutors knew at the time that Eidleh had fled the country.
Federal prosecutors’ decision to indict Eidleh knowing he was abroad shows that “they always intended to follow through to get him back, however they are able to,” Sweasy said.
On the run for years
FBI Special Agent Jared Kary testified during Bock’s 2025 trial that he briefly spoke on the phone with Eidleh the day FBI agents raided more than a dozen properties in February 2022 when the Feeding Our Future scandal went public.
“He told me he was in Somalia,” Kary testified. “He said he had left the country in September 2021.”
Credit: Cedric Hohnstadt
The FBI’s investigation of Feeding Our Future began in the spring of 2021.
Kary testified that Eidleh told him it looked like he needed to get a lawyer. Federal authorities didn’t speak with Eidleh again after that phone call.
Several people who were convicted in the Feeding Our Future fraud testified at Bock’s six-week trial that Eidleh directly recruited them into the fraud scheme, and personally collected the kickbacks they gave to the nonprofit.
The money in the Feeding Our Future case came from two federal programs used to feed children and adults in daycare and afterschool programs: the Child and Adult Care Program and the Summer Food Service Program.
Feeding Our Future played gatekeeper to these dollars by serving as a sponsor organization for nonprofits and businesses that received the federal money to serve meals. Hundreds of nonprofits and businesses submitted reports to Feeding Our Future with the number of meals they allegedly served, which Feeding Our Future then submitted to the federal government for reimbursement.
The fraud was simple in its foundation: Some organizations allegedly reported serving more meals than they actually did in order to receive more federal money. Some never actually served meals at all.
Qamar Hassan testified that Eidleh told her how to enroll her catering business in the federal food program. Eidleh also told her she could start claiming to supply 5,000 meals a day.
Hassan testified that the number surprised her, partly because a restaurant that participated in the food program was only one block from her business, meaning that two places reported to feed more people than was logically possible in a small area.
Lul Ali testified that Eidleh set up a similar arrangement with her restaurant. Ali and her husband testified that they paid Eidleh and Bock a monthly $60,000 kickback for enrollment in the food program. They served far fewer meals than they reported to the federal government.
Abdulkadir Awale, who enrolled his three restaurants in the federal food program, also testified that Eidleh instructed him on how to commit fraud.
“He told me a lot of people are making money and making [up] more people than they serve,” Awale testified, “and that’s the way I can get more money.”
Sahan Journal reporter Mohamed Ibrahim contributed to this report.
