A Somali fraudster federally convicted in the Feeding Our Future scheme previously fought for a Minnesota nonprofit organization, the recent recipient of a new government grant, to receive millions of dollars in state funding.

African Economic Development Solutions, whose past clients include a Feeding Our Future defendant, was recently awarded a $100,000 grant as part of a public outreach initiative aimed at increasing “equitable” participation in Minnesota’s new paid leave program. That previous AEDS client, who testified to the state legislature in 2021 about why the nonprofit group should receive public funding, was later convicted in the United States’s largest known pandemic-era fraud scheme.