A Bloomington woman admitted to laundering money in the Feeding Our Future case after being unknowingly drawn into the multi-million dollar fraud.
Farhiya Mohamud, 65, pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to one count of money laundering. According to her plea deal, the prosecution and defense agree that Farhiya was not involved in or aware of the broader scheme to defraud the federal government of $250 million in funds meant to feed underprivileged children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the agreement says that Farhiya should have known that the large amounts of money she received from other defendants in the case were “criminally derived.”
Farhiya admitted in court that her son, Sharmarke Issa, who also pleaded guilty in the case, directed her to buy real estate for him using money she received from co-defendants Haji Salad and Fahad Nur. The plea agreement says she wired $300,000 from one bank account and $184,308 from another to go toward a $785,000 home for her son. Her guilty plea relates to the $184,308 transfer.