Minneapolis daycare owner charged with fraud tried to flee country days after closing center, prosecutors allege

Federal fraud charges were unsealed Wednesday against a Minnesota daycare owner who prosecutors allege tried to flee the country just two days after shutting the daycare center down. 

Federal prosecutors said Future Leaders Early Learning — a site sponsored by Feeding Our Future — pretended to feed children during the pandemic, but pocketed much of the money instead.

Fahima Mahamud, the daycare’s owner, was charged with one count each of wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States through Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program, or CCAP, according to a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday. Mahamud is currently under house arrest. 

She is accused of stealing taxpayer money that was meant to help families feed their children. Prosecutors allege her center at one point was claiming to serve 60,000 children monthly and falsifying invoices to justify reimbursement.

Between January and July of 2021, her daycare center received more than $850,000 in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds directly from Feeding Our Future — a nonprofit group that is at the center of what federal authorities have called a $250 million fraud scandal — but only a fraction was used to purchase food, according to an indictment obtained Wednesday. 

In 2020 and 2021, Mahamud submitted receipts claiming to have served two meals a day to 1,000 different children, seven days a week, the court documents state.

And from 2022 to 2025, Mahamud submitted roughly 13,000 claims for $4.6M in reimbursements through CCAP “on behalf of recipients from whom co-payments were not collected as required,” the indictment alleges. 

The Future Leaders Early Learning Center was one of 10 Minneapolis daycares visited by conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley in December and featured in a viral video. State license investigators had also visited the site on Nov. 10, 2025, and issued a citation for the space not being clean and children’s files not containing immunization documentation.    

In February, Mahamud notified the state that Future Leaders Early Learning was closing. That same day, prosecutors say she booked a flight to London.  

In April, at least 20 Minnesota daycares and autism centers were raided by federal agents. It’s unclear if Future Leaders Early Learning Center was one of them.

So far, nearly 100 people have been charged in the Feeding Our Future scheme. The Justice Department said Wednesday that it would hold a news conference Thursday morning to announce a “major law enforcement action involving fraud” in Minnesota. Among those taking part in the event would be acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.