Minnesota authorities have filed criminal charges against a Hennepin County store owner accused of running a food stamp fraud scheme that siphoned more than $1.1 million from taxpayers, the latest in a long line of welfare fraud cases that have made the state a national symbol of lax oversight and easy marks.
Abdidwahid Mohamed, owner of Minnesota Food Grocery LLC, allegedly used EBT cards registered to other people to buy goods at Sam's Club and Costco in 2021, then hauled those goods back to his own store for resale. The complaint states Mohamed received $1,141,082 in EBT payments and that the scheme "involved a high degree of sophistication or planning or occurred over a lengthy period of time."
If convicted, Mohamed faces up to 20 years in prison or a $100,000 fine. But for Minnesota Republicans and taxpayer advocates, the charges raise a harder question: Why does it keep happening here?
The fraud was not uncovered by a state agency. Minnesota state Sen. Mark Koran, a Republican, told Fox News Digital that the suspect was initially flagged by Walmart's Global Investigation Team, a private retailer doing the detective work that Minnesota's own bureaucracy apparently missed.
Koran called the case "yet another example of why Minnesota is target number one for fraudsters."
"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."
Hennepin County authorities said they observed Mohamed making purchases and followed him back to his store with the goods. Surveillance footage and GPS data backed up the allegations. The mechanics were not subtle: a man walks into Sam's Club and Costco with other people's EBT cards, loads up, drives to his own shop, and stocks the shelves.
State Sen. Michael Holmstrom, also a Republican, did not mince words about the brazenness of the operation.
"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."
That line, "conditioned to believe there are no consequences", captures the frustration running through Minnesota's Republican caucus. The state has become a case study in what happens when oversight lags far behind the scale of public benefits flowing through the system.
This SNAP fraud case does not exist in isolation. Federal prosecutors have estimated that fraud against 14 Medicaid programs in Minnesota could total $9 billion. That figure dwarfs the $1.1 million at issue here, but the pattern is the same: massive public benefit programs, weak state-level enforcement, and a political class that has been slow to act.
Gov. Tim Walz's office was contacted by Fox News Digital for comment on the latest charges. No response was reported. Walz testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2026, at a hearing that examined alleged misuse of federal funds for Minnesota social services and Medicaid programs.
The governor's record on fraud has drawn persistent criticism. He rushed to claim credit for FBI day care raids after previously dismissing fraud concerns, a reversal that struck many observers as politically convenient rather than principled.
The broader scandal has also produced institutional fallout. Walz pulled his Minnesota human services chief one day before a confirmation hearing amid the mounting fraud scandal, a move that raised more questions than it answered about what leadership knew and when.
Dalia al-Aqidi, a Republican running for Congress in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District against Rep. Ilhan Omar, offered the sharpest commentary on the case. She connected the SNAP fraud charges to a broader culture of institutional failure in Minneapolis.
"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."
Al-Aqidi went further, calling the gap between political rhetoric about "affordability" and the reality of rampant fraud a "cruel joke." She argued the money exists to help people who genuinely need it, but it keeps ending up in the wrong hands.
"It is just lining the wrong pockets and paying for luxury cars and houses on the other side of the world. The fraudsters are only half the story. The other half are the people administering these programs, from the front lines all the way up to Ilhan Omar, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Governor Tim Walz. There has been talk about ending fraud in Minnesota for years. I am going to Washington to actually do it."
The political dimension is hard to ignore. A Minnesota fraud committee has pointed to Rep. Omar's role in the broader Feeding Our Future scandal, and the question of political accountability remains unresolved even as individual defendants face prosecution.
The charges come amid what has been described as a renewed crackdown from the Trump administration on food stamp fraud. In March, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. co-authored a Fox News op-ed laying out the administration's position on SNAP's failures.
"Since its inception, SNAP has helped our most vulnerable citizens afford the essential and nutritious food they need. At least, that is what the program is supposed to do."
They continued:
"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."
That framing, a program built to help the vulnerable, hijacked by people gaming the system, fits the Mohamed case precisely. EBT cards are supposed to function like debit cards for low-income households buying food. They are not supposed to be bulk-purchasing tools for a store owner stocking his shelves with someone else's benefits.
Sen. Koran demanded full prosecution, and not just of Mohamed. He called for accountability for everyone involved in the chain, including the people who allegedly sold their EBT cards to him in the first place.
"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."
Several details remain unclear. The exact charges, the court handling the case, and the specific statutes cited have not been publicly identified in available reporting. Whether Mohamed has entered a plea or retained an attorney has not been reported. The filing date of the charges is also unknown.
What is clear is the pattern. Minnesota's welfare system has become a magnet for fraud, from day care schemes to Medicaid billing to SNAP abuse. The FBI has raided more than 20 fraud-linked sites in Minneapolis, leaving storefronts empty and communities asking how the grift went on so long.
The political leadership in Minnesota has had years to tighten controls, strengthen oversight, and send a clear signal that fraud carries real consequences. Instead, the state's enforcement apparatus keeps getting outrun by the very people it is supposed to police, and private companies like Walmart end up doing the work that state agencies should have done from the start.
When a grocer can walk into Costco with a stack of other people's EBT cards and walk out with over a million dollars in goods before anyone in state government notices, the problem is not one bad actor. It is the system that made him think he could get away with it.
