Minneapolis daycare owner Fahima Mahamud charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States

The CEO of Minneapolis’ Future Leader Early Learning, a daycare center featured in Nick Shirley’s video exposing daycare fraud in Minnesota, is now facing federal fraud charges.

Fahima Egeh Mahamud was charged on Wednesday with conspiracy to defraud the United States and wire fraud. Authorities claim that Mahamud had enrolled the center in the federal child nutrition program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future and falsely claimed to have served thousands of meals at the center.

Mahamud "received Federal Child Nutrition Program funds that substantially exceeded the amount of food that Mahamud served to children," a court document stated.

Feeding Our Future began sponsoring the Future Leaders center in October 2018, and between December 2020 and July 2021, Mahamud "claimed to serve tens of thousands of meals to children at the Future Leaders site each month. In reality, Mahamud’s operation only served a fraction of those claimed meals," the court document stated.

She allegedly submitted false invoices claiming to buy food from vendors that included a company called Alif Halal, owned by Hoda Abdi, who provided false receipts to Mahamud. "Mahamud knew the Alif Halal receipts were false and inflated. Even so, Mahamud provided those receipts to Feeding Our Future in support of Mahamud’s claims for reimbursement."

Prosecutors also claim that Mahamud had submitted false paperwork to Minnesota's Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), in which she claimed to have properly received necessary co-payments needed to receive reimbursements from the government. However, she did not do this, prosecutors said.

Mahamud is accused of submitting over 13,000 claims to the CCAP program between October 2022 and December 2025, of which 6,144 were for services provided to those whom a co-payment was required to be collected. The daycare received over $4.6 million from CCAP, as well as over $850,000 from the federal child nutrition program, prosecutors said.

She is accused of diverting much of the funds received by Future Leaders "for the purchase of real property, for the benefit of herself, and to other companies associated with Mahamud, including Minneapolis Autism Center Corp, Future Properties LLC, Fahima Property Group, and Kahyr Property Group Inc."

Mahamud is also facing charges for her role in the Feeding Our Future scheme. In that case, she has been charged with one count of wire fraud.

 

Fahima Egeh Mahamud Charging Docs by Hannah Nightingale