Process around the largest corona fraud ever starts: “pressed back more than $ 240 million”

In Minnesota this week the process is starting one of the biggest fraud cases around the Coronapandemie. The case is so great that the 70 defendants had to be divided into groups and will be tried at different times. One of the protagonists, Aimee Bock, is now being discussed. She is the founder of the non-profit organization Feeding Our Future, who had to provide healthy meals for school-going children. And the organization did that too. But during the Coronapandemie, Bock and its supporters hired an acceleration.

Because the schools were closed during the pandemic, the government opened an extra fund and relaxed the rules to provide school children with hot meals during the pandemic. The organization Feeding Our Future had the task of overseeing various smaller organizations in the state of Minnesota and to ensure that all resources ended up in the right place.

But, say the prosecutors, those charity organizations have seriously abused the system. Bock and her supporters took the opportunity to press back the mass support. The number of meals that Feeding Our Future indicated at the Federal Child Nutrition Program increased dramatically. In 2019, the organization received a budget of $ 3.4 million in federal funds to provide meals. In 2021, that budget was already at nearly 200 million dollars. (Read more under the photo)

240 million dollars

Because the supervision of the use of the auxiliary funds during the Corona Pandemie was smoother than usual, the suspects were able to go their own way undisturbed for a long time. Priority was to get meals from the children as quickly as possible.

But in January 2022 the game came to an end. The FBI invaded our Future in Minnesota at various locations of Feeding Our Future and the Boel was stopped. According to the public prosecutors, the money that the organization and the smaller non-profits received was barely spent on meals. “The scammers darkened the money and used it to buy real estate, cars and other things.” The organizations, among other things, lied about the number of meals and manufactured false invoices to further boost the budget.

“Bock and other employees of Feeding Our Future asked and also received bribes and bribes from individuals and companies sponsored by feeding our Future,” the prosecutors continued. “Feeding Our Future worked with a pay-to-play scheme, where individuals who wanted to exploit fraudulent locations under the sponsorship of feeding our Future had to repay part of their fraudulent revenues to employees of Feeding Our Future.” There would have been more than $ 240 million to the fraudsters during the Pandemie. (Read more under the photo)

Bribery

“Master brain” Aimee Bock claims that she is innocent in the whole story. “She is innocent and she will propagate that faith, that truth to the day she dies,” said her lawyer Kenneth Udoibok in an interview last week. “This woman was cheated, played by people she trusted. She trusted that these people, who have since argued guilty, had supplied food to children in need of help, people in need of help, people who deserved it. And they played her. “

Of the 70 defendants in the case, some thirty have already argued. Five suspects were also convicted during a trial last year. One person even received a prison sentence of 17.5 years. The case then received extra attention after a jury member bag of bribe of 120,000 dollars indicated to the police. Five people, three of whom are now standing, were eventually accused of bribery. Two out of five have already argued guilty and one person will be added later. The bribery case in itself will be discussed in March.

On Monday, the jury selection starts in Minnesota for the second part of the large fraud process. The case is expected to take six weeks.