A Minnesota grocery store owner faces up to 20 years in prison after Hennepin County authorities charged him with allegedly using other people's EBT cards to rack up more than $1.1 million in fraudulent food stamp purchases at big-box retailers, then reselling the goods in his own shop.
Abdidwahid Mohamed, owner of Minnesota Food Grocery LLC, was charged in connection with the scheme, which investigators say involved bulk purchases at Sam's Club and Costco using EBT cards registered to people who never authorized the transactions. The case lands in the middle of an already bruising stretch for Minnesota's social services programs, where fraud allegations have piled up faster than the state can answer them.
The criminal complaint lays out a straightforward grift with a large price tag. Investigators allege Mohamed obtained EBT cards belonging to other individuals and used them to purchase goods at warehouse retailers in 2021. He then allegedly stocked those items on the shelves of his own grocery store and sold them at retail markup, pocketing the proceeds while taxpayers covered the original tab.
The numbers are not small. The New York Post reported that the complaint states Mohamed received $1,141,082 in EBT payments. Prosecutors allege the operation was not a crime of impulse or opportunity. The complaint states the plan "involved a high degree of sophistication or planning or occurred over a lengthy period of time."
That language matters. In Minnesota criminal law, allegations of sophistication and sustained planning can influence sentencing and signal to a court that the defendant allegedly treated fraud as a business model rather than a one-off mistake.
Fox News reported that authorities built their case using surveillance footage, GPS data, and interviews with the cardholders whose EBT accounts were allegedly exploited. That combination of evidence suggests investigators tracked Mohamed's physical movements between warehouse stores and his own shop, then cross-referenced purchase records with the cardholders themselves.
The cardholders' interviews are a critical piece. If the people whose cards were used confirm they never authorized the purchases and never received the goods, prosecutors can establish that the transactions were unauthorized. Investigators will need to determine whether Mohamed allegedly obtained the cards through theft, purchase on the black market, or some other method. Authorities have not publicly confirmed how he allegedly gained access to the cards.
If convicted, Mohamed could face up to 20 years in prison. He has been charged but not convicted, and the case remains in its early stages in Hennepin County.
The Mohamed case does not exist in a vacuum. Minnesota has become a recurring setting for large-scale fraud allegations tied to taxpayer-funded social programs. The most prominent example remains the Feeding Our Future scandal, a massive federal case alleging hundreds of millions of dollars in pandemic-era nutrition program fraud. That case has already produced convictions, and in one related proceeding, a Minneapolis man was sentenced to 57 months for bribing a juror during one of the fraud trials.
Federal authorities have also shown increasing interest in the state's broader social services infrastructure. Earlier this year, FBI and Homeland Security agents raided 22 Minnesota businesses as part of a sweeping social services fraud probe, a signal that investigators believe the problem extends well beyond any single defendant or program.
Republican officials and conservative critics have pointed the finger squarely at state leadership. Dalia al-Aqidi, a Republican who has been vocal on the issue, put it bluntly in a statement covered by multiple outlets.
"Minneapolis didn't become America's fraud capital by accident."
That line captures a growing conservative argument: that the sheer volume of fraud cases emerging from Minnesota reflects systemic failures in oversight, not just individual bad actors. Critics contend that Gov. Tim Walz and state officials failed to build adequate safeguards into programs that distribute billions in public funds.
SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is the federal food stamp program administered at the state level. EBT cards function like debit cards loaded with benefits. The system depends on retailers processing legitimate transactions for eligible recipients. When a store owner allegedly uses cards belonging to other people, the entire trust architecture of the program breaks down.
The Mohamed case highlights a specific vulnerability: the gap between wholesale purchase and retail resale. A store owner with access to multiple EBT cards can allegedly buy in bulk at warehouse prices, stock his shelves for free, and then sell the same goods for cash. The taxpayer pays twice in effect: once for the fraudulent EBT transaction and again through the lost integrity of a program meant to feed low-income families.
That dynamic has drawn scrutiny well beyond Minnesota. The Trump administration has pushed fraud enforcement across multiple federal benefit programs. Dr. Oz, leading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has targeted five states in an expanding Medicaid fraud crackdown, signaling that the federal appetite for rooting out waste extends across program lines.
Charging documents are not convictions. Mohamed is presumed innocent, and his defense team will have the opportunity to challenge every piece of the state's evidence. Several questions remain open.
Investigators have not publicly confirmed whether Mohamed acted alone or with accomplices. The original headline references "others' EBT cards," but the complaint's details about how many cardholders were involved and whether anyone else participated in the alleged resale operation have not been fully laid out in public reporting. Breitbart's coverage of the case framed the scheme within a broader pattern of welfare fraud that has "blossomed" in Minnesota, but the specific scope of Mohamed's alleged network remains unclear.
Prosecutors will also need to establish the full timeline. The complaint references 2021 activity, but investigators have not said publicly whether the alleged fraud continued beyond that year or whether it began earlier. The total dollar figure of $1,141,082 represents the amount Mohamed allegedly received in EBT payments, but authorities have not disclosed how much profit he allegedly generated from reselling the goods.
Defense attorneys in fraud cases often challenge the reliability of surveillance evidence and the credibility of cooperating witnesses. Whether any of the cardholders had a prior relationship with Mohamed, and whether any of them willingly participated, are questions that could shape the trial.
The broader enforcement picture in Minnesota continues to expand. Federal and state investigators have now brought cases touching SNAP fraud, nutrition program fraud, social services fraud, and jury tampering connected to fraud trials. Each case carries its own facts and its own defendant, but the geographic and programmatic overlap is hard to ignore.
Congressional oversight has also intensified around fraud in taxpayer-funded programs. In California, the House Oversight Committee demanded documents from Gov. Newsom over alleged hospice fraud, reflecting a bipartisan appetite on the Hill for holding state leaders accountable when fraud flourishes on their watch.
For Minnesota, the question is whether the Mohamed case represents the tail end of a fraud wave or just another data point in an ongoing crisis. The state's track record over the past several years offers little reason for optimism on that front.
When a single grocery store owner can allegedly drain more than a million dollars from a program designed to feed struggling families, the system is not working. Someone built that system, someone ran it, and someone chose not to fix it. Those are the questions that outlast any single indictment.
