Minneapolis, Minnesota: Salim Said Sentenced to 30 Years in Feeding Our Future Fraud Case

A federal judge in Minneapolis sentenced Salim Said to 30 years in prison on Wednesday, October 28, for his central role in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme. U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel also ordered Said to pay more than $44 million in restitution.

Said operated Safari Restaurant in south Minneapolis. A federal jury convicted him in 2025 on 21 counts, including wire fraud, conspiracy, federal programs bribery and money laundering, alongside Aimee Bock, the founder of the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. Prosecutors said Said was responsible for about $44 million in fraud, part of it carried out by other people he recruited into the scheme.

Claims that did not match the cameras

During the COVID-19 pandemic, federal rules changed so restaurants and sites outside schools could claim reimbursement for feeding children. Prosecutors said Said submitted fraudulent reimbursement claims for 21 consecutive months, inflating meal counts and listing children who did not exist. His operation claimed a daily distribution of about 6,000 meals, while FBI surveillance cameras showed roughly 40 people a day collecting food, prosecutors said in a court filing.

"The defendant and his sites did not serve thousands of children; he served a calculated, lucrative lie," prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Said expanded the operation through a nonprofit that claimed to run meal sites in Willmar, St. Cloud and Mankato, and that he used the money to buy a $1.2 million home, commercial real estate and an $87,000 pickup truck.

What the judge and the lawyers said

Prosecutors had asked for a 40 year sentence. Said's defense attorney, Barry Zone, had asked for 12 years. Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Kline argued that public programs depend on trust and that Said's crime will continue to impact the state for generations, FOX 9 reported.

"You took more than taxpayers' dollars to enrich yourself. You took the reputation of our state down with you," Judge Brasel told Said, according to the Associated Press. The judge said Said was responsible for the breaking of the public's faith in government, and added: "It is my hope that one day the words Minnesota and fraud will not be spoken in the same sentence."

Said spoke briefly at the hearing and said he was deeply sorry for his involvement, FOX 9 reported. At his 2025 trial he had denied the allegations and testified that many meals were delivered off site. Zone disputed the government's description of his client as the architect of the scheme. "He's not the designer of the scheme," Zone said. "My client at no point was he in the position of Ms. Bock." Zone also described Said's early life in Somalia, saying he fled civil war there as a child and spent years in refugee camps in Kenya before coming to the United States.

One sentence in a much wider case

Said is one of dozens of people convicted in the wider Feeding Our Future investigation, which prosecutors put at about $250 million. Bock, who founded the nonprofit and was convicted at the same 2025 trial, is serving a prison sentence of more than 40 years for devising the overall plan to recruit Said and others into the program, the Associated Press reported. State auditors found that the Minnesota Department of Education had received numerous complaints about Feeding Our Future and often told the group to police itself.