Letter from Mogadishu: US offers bounty for Minnesota food-for-stamps scam man hiding in Somalia

An aerial view of Somalia's Mogadishu area. [AFP]

Three things happened in Somalia this week which Nairobi must have taken note of.

The first was that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) offered a reward of $150,000 for information leading to the location and arrest of Fahad Mohamed Nur, a Somali-American wanted in connection with a Minnesota Food-for-stamps fraud scheme involving a federal child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nur, 42, was indicted for participating in a scheme that prosecutors say fraudulently obtained about $300 million in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds from the state of Minnesota in the United States by falsely claiming to have provided millions of meals to children in need.

The FBI said Nur, a naturalized US citizen of Somali origin, has other aliases including Nur Abdiwali Hassan and Abdiwali Nur Hassan. The agency said he is believed to be living in Somalia.

According to the FBI, Nur owned a food supply company that allegedly received more than $5 million in program funds. Prosecutors allege the company submitted fraudulent documents and invoices claiming to have provided food that was never delivered to the locations listed.

A federal court in Minnesota issued an arrest warrant for Nur on 13 September, 2022, after he was charged with offences including financial fraud and money laundering.

Nur is among 79 people charged so far in connection with the alleged scheme. Prosecutors say those involved diverted the funds for personal gain instead of using them to provide meals to children.

Some of the proceeds from the Minnesota food-for-stamps fraud scheme ended up in Nairobi and Diani in Kwale, where the beneficiaries purchased high-end properties, including beach apartments.

A Kenyan national, Abdiaziz Shafi Farah, was sentenced to 28 years in prison in August, 2025. In September of the same year, his brother, Ahmednaji Maalim Aftin Sheikh, was indicted for conspiracy to commit international money laundering.

Sheikh allegedly laundered $40 million through real estate, including a 20 per cent stake in a development company, an apartment building in Nairobi’s South C and land in Mandera County.

Another individual linked to the scam, Asha Farhan Hassan, was charged with defrauding Minnesota’s Early Intensive Development and Behavioural Intervention autism services program of over $14 million by submitting claims for services never rendered. US court documents indicate that part of that money was used to purchase real estate in Kenya.

Given the history between Americans and Somalis, Nur must have assumed he was in a safe place where he would never be found. But the noose seems to be tightening around his neck.

Will Nur surrender to the authorities in Mogadishu, or will he stay put and hope that the long arm of the American government will not catch up with him?

The FBI's pursuit of Nur must send chills down the spines of many Somalis who benefited from the food-for-stamps fraud in Minnesota and invested the same in Kenya. So, will the FBI come for these properties and their beneficiaries? 

This has now become a wait-and-see scenario, with the Kenyan authorities ready to hand over the properties and the persons implicated.

The second issue to take note of for Kenya was that the United States offered a reward of up to $5 million for information on the whereabouts of Khadra Issa, a Somali-born Dutch national accused of holding a senior role in an all-female Islamic State unit in Syria and taking custody of two American children.

The reward, announced through the U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice programme, places renewed attention on Issa, also known as “Umm Qaqa al-Somali,” and her alleged activities within ISIS.

According to the US account, Issa travelled from the Netherlands to Syria in 2014 and joined ISIS. She is accused of later becoming a commander of Nusaybah Katibah, an all-female unit operating in Raqqa when the Syrian city served as the group’s main stronghold.

US authorities allege that Issa was involved in training women, including foreign recruits, in weapons handling and combat tactics. She is also accused of enforcing the group’s strict rules against women and of involvement in violence against those accused of violating them.

The State Department has also linked Issa to the disappearance of two American children, Yusuf and Zahra Shikder. US authorities say their mother, an American citizen who had joined ISIS, was killed in Syria in 2019, after which Issa allegedly took custody of the children.

Their current whereabouts and condition remain unknown.

The United States is seeking information that could help locate Issa and the two children. The reward is being offered under Rewards for Justice, a State Department programme that provides payments for information related to terrorism and threats to US national security.

Kenya has been scarred by the terror group Al Shabaab who initially started by kidnapping tourists from hotels along the Kenyan coast, especially in the towns of Lamu and Malindi.

Kenya has also been a victim of terror attacks carried out by these terror groups, including the siege on Westgate Mall in Westlands and the Dusit Hotel along Riverside Drive, all in Nairobi.

The fact that someone across the Somali border can take American children as hostages must send a shiver down the spine of Kenyan authorities, especially those in the anti-terror units.

I am sure Kenyans have not forgotten about one Samantha Lewthwaite, the white widow who was linked to both the Westgate mall and Dusit terror attacks. More than ten years since these attacks took place, Samantha’s whereabouts, believed to be in Somalia, remain unknown.

The third issue of significance to Kenya was the decision by Turkey to deport 50 Somali nationals to Mogadishu, with nearly 300 others held in a facility in Istanbul as they await possible deportation.

Some of the youth who comprise both men and women face deportation for their irregular migration activities. The Turkish authorities have also not given grounds for deporting the Somalis or those being held in detention camps awaiting deportation.

While Somalia’s ministry of foreign affairs said it was not aware of the deportations, it said Turkey was right to deport people it did not want to remain in their country.

Last month, Kenya had its own tiff with Somalia when it turned away two ministers who had landed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for refusing to hand in their Kenyan travel documents.

While the Somalia foreign affairs ministry has been mum regarding this issue, one of the officials turned away, deputy prime minister Jibril Abdirashid Haji showed up at Kenya’s embassy in Mogadishu to hand over his Kenyan citizenship documents.

Could the Somali youth being deported and held up in detention camps in Istanbul be victims of the same scandal of travelling on fraudulent documents? Over to you, Somalia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.