Safari Restaurant profited more than any of the roughly 200 food sites that participated in the biggest COVID fraud scheme in the country, according to Wednesday’s testimony in the ongoing Feeding Our Future trial.
In the first month of its enrollment in the food program, April 2020, the popular south Minneapolis Somali restaurant had already made more than $376,000 — an income equivalent to what it made in a typical year before the pandemic, according to financial documents presented before court.
Before long, Safari would be earning more than $1 million a month, according to documents presented at trial, all from the federal government.
“It was apparent they were making more money being involved in the child nutrition program than they were in past years,” said FBI Special Agent Jared Kary, who spent the day on the stand answering questions.
The restaurant has since shut down.
Former Feeding Our Future Executive Director Aimee Bock and former Safari Restaurant co-owner Salim Said are standing trial this month for their roles in the estimated $250 million fraud scheme. Wednesday marked the third day of testimony in a trial that is expected to last through the end of the month.
Prosecutors also showed video and photos of an empty-looking Safari Restaurant from the FBI’s investigation during December 2021, comparing that to meal claims the restaurant submitted to Feeding Our Future claiming it fed about 3,500 people daily at that location during the same time period.
Kary testified that he watched hours of video footage and saw no evidence of this number of people coming to the restaurant
“It was impossible this many children could be fed,” Kary testified.
In total, Safari claimed to have served 3.9 million meals in 2020 and 2021, taking in more than $12 million from the government through Feeding Our Future, which allowed the restaurant to access federal dollars.
In return, the restaurant paid a roughly 10% fee to Feeding Our Future. For example, the same month it entered the federal program, Safari paid $39,000 to Feeding Our Future. Prosecutors allege payments like this were kickbacks for enrolling Safari in the program.
Feeding Our Future has contended these were legal payments to administer the federal program.
During cross-examination, Bock’s attorney Kenneth Udoibok stressed that the food claims came during an unprecedented global pandemic.
“There is no cultural norm as to when a society reacts to a pandemic of that size, because we have never experienced it, correct?” Udoibok asked Kary.
Kary compared the COVID pandemic to the Sept. 11 attacks, but Udoibok replied that the attacks didn’t close schools and restaurants like COVID did.
“When you testify about the abnormality of meal counts and banking, you were basing that on a hunch, correct?” Udoibok asked Kary.
“Not at all,” Kary responded. “I based it on common sense.”
Said Salim’s attorneys had not begun cross-examination of Kary at the time this story was published.
The videos and still images shown at the trial came from pole cameras that the FBI installed outside the restaurant in early December 2021. Kary testified that the FBI installed cameras at the 12 food sites that claimed to serve the most meals. The cameras stayed up until late January 2022, when FBI agents raided several properties and made their investigation public.
One video presented at trial showed just four cars parked in front of Safari on a weekday afternoon, with no people walking in or out of the restaurant.
Another video showed just two parked in the alley at Safari’s back entrance. Safari claimed to prepare 3,500 meals for needy children each on both of those days, and even claimed they had to turn away 61 people, according to documents presented at trial. The meal claims had both Bock and Salim Said’s signatures on them.
Prosecutors presented several examples like this, usually using still photos, of surveillance at Safari and ASA Limited, a company owned by Salim Said that claimed to feed 2,000 kids a day at a strip mall deli in St. Paul. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Ebert repeatedly asked Kary whether he observed this many people being fed at those two locations on those days.
“Absolutely not,” Kary stated.
Udoibok zeroed in on how the FBI surveilled the 12 food sites for just over one month of its two-year investigation. He also emphasized that FBI agents only had one camera at Safari that was sometimes pointed at its front entrance and sometimes pointed at its back entrance.
He asked Kary if it was possible that Safari delivered meals to client’s homes, and if it was possible that meals were delivered from the back entrance using trucks at times when the camera wasn’t capturing the area. “Is it possible your cameras wouldn’t have captured food exiting from the back entrance?” Udoibok asked.
No, Kary said, adding that the restaurant delivering thousands of meals a day “wouldn’t make sense.”
“Do you know how many meals can fit into a U-Haul truck?” Udoibok asked.
“I don’t know how many meals,” Kary responded.
Prosecutors also presented attendance records from ASA Limited to support the meal claims that showed randomly generated names and ages of children. One email from a co-defendant who is not a part of this trial instructed another person to “make all the kids ages 7-17” for the ASA Limited food site in St. Paul.
“It was apparent the kids weren’t real,” Kary testified. “They were just being assigned an age.”
Federal prosecutors have charged 70 people in the massive investigation. Thirty-four defendants have pleaded guilty, and five were convicted in a trial held last year.
The fraud was simple in its foundation. Several organizations reported serving thousands more meals than they actually did — or simply never served any meals at all — in order to receive more federal money, according to prosecutors. Those funds were then allegedly passed through various shell companies before being pocketed by the perpetrators, who used the money to buy cars, property, and other items.
