He Claimed to Feed 6,000 Kids a Day. The Cameras Counted 40.

On Wednesday morning, in a federal courtroom in Minneapolis, a judge handed Salim Said 30 years in prison. The number that put him there was not 30. It was 6,000, set against 40.

For 21 straight months, prosecutors said, Said claimed his restaurant was feeding up to 6,000 children a day. FBI surveillance cameras watching the same restaurant counted something very different: about 40 people a day showing up to collect food.

Said ran the Safari Restaurant in south Minneapolis. Before the pandemic, prosecutors said, he made roughly $30,000 a year operating it. Then COVID-19 changed the rules of a federal program that normally fed children through schools. Restaurants could suddenly participate, and food distribution could stretch beyond school walls. The program was built on trust, and trust was exactly what Said exploited.

In April 2020, he signed up as a food provider under Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota nonprofit that sponsored meal sites across the state. What followed, according to the government, was a machine built on paper. Said submitted reimbursement claims month after month, inflating meal counts and listing children who did not exist. Fake attendance sheets backed up bloated meal reports, and the money kept coming.

It was not a small operation. Prosecutors said Said was responsible for about $44 million in fraud, some of it committed by people he recruited himself. He expanded through a nonprofit that claimed to run meal sites in Willmar, St. Cloud, and Mankato. The government called him an architect of the wider scheme, a man who essentially franchised the fraud across Minnesota. His restaurant, Safari, became the largest single fake-food location in the entire scandal.

The money did not go to hungry children. Prosecutors said Said used it to buy a $1.2 million home, commercial real estate, and an $87,000 pickup truck. The lifestyle was lavish. The meals were not real.

At his trial in 2025, Said denied the allegations. He testified that many meals were delivered off site, out of the cameras' view. The jury did not buy it. He was convicted alongside Aimee Bock, the founder of Feeding Our Future, on 21 felony counts that included wire fraud, conspiracy, federal programs bribery, and money laundering.

By the time he stood for sentencing on Wednesday, his story had changed. He spoke briefly and said he was deeply sorry for his involvement. His defense attorney, Barry Zone, had asked for 12 years. Zone argued that Said was not the designer of the scheme and was never in the position Bock was in. He told the judge about Said's upbringing, saying he spent the first 15 years of his life in what he called hell, fleeing civil war in Somalia and moving from refugee camp to refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the United States.

Prosecutors had asked for 40 years. Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Kline argued that public programs depend on trust, and that Said's crime would continue to impact the state for generations. In a court filing, prosecutors put it even more bluntly: Said and his sites did not serve thousands of children. He served a calculated, lucrative lie.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel landed between the two asks, and her words landed harder than the number. She told Said he was responsible for the breaking of the public's faith in government. She said it was her hope that one day the words Minnesota and fraud would not be spoken in the same sentence. Then she delivered the line that will follow this case: You took more than taxpayers' dollars to enrich yourself. You took the reputation of our state down with you.

Along with the 30-year sentence, the judge ordered Said to pay more than $44 million in restitution, and approved the forfeiture of homes, vehicles, and commercial property prosecutors said were bought with stolen program funds.

Said's case is only one piece of a much larger scandal. The wider Feeding Our Future scheme is valued at roughly $250 million, and dozens of people have been convicted. Bock herself received 42 years and was ordered to pay $242 million in restitution. Abdiaziz Farah, who headed the Empire Cuisine group of defendants, received 28 years. Federal investigators say the wider probe is still going, with asset seizures continuing and more indictments possible.

The part that still stings is the simplest one. The money was meant to feed children during a pandemic, at a moment when schools were closed and families were stretched thin. The program asked for very little in return: feed the kids, report the meals honestly, and the government would pay. Said reported 6,000 meals a day. The cameras counted 40 people.

Thirty years is a long time to think about the distance between those two numbers.