The COVID lockdowns were a disaster in so many ways that it’s hard to keep track of all of them. But one problem was that the situation represented an absolutely golden opportunity for corrupt grifters.

Here’s a huge case in Minnesota, Tim Walz’s state:

The founder of a Minnesota-based charity was convicted Wednesday of hatching a brazen ruse that pilfered close to $250 million in pandemic relief funds from a federal program meant to feed hungry children in need – in what prosecutors said was the nation’s largest COVID-19 fraud scheme.

Aimee Bock, the 44-year-old founder of Feeding our Future, was found guilty on federal charges of wire fraud, bribery and conspiracy for recruiting a network of people and organizations to operate as many as 250 fraudulent meal assistance sites throughout the state, according to the US Attorney’s Office in Minnesota.

Prosecutors said her non-profit took advantage of a COVID rule change that allowed for student meal-assistance programs to operate off school grounds, as well as for the involvement of for-profit restaurants – blowing federal funding meant to feed underserved children during the pandemic on her “lavish” lifestyle.

Her co-defendant, Salim Ahmed Said, who oversaw one of the phony kitchens in Minneapolis, was also convicted after the six-week trial on a mountain of charges for his role in the scheme.

Approximately 250 million dollars isn’t chump change, and 250 fake sites is an impressive number as well. These people thought big.

And it takes quite a degree of “lavishness” in one’s “lifestyle” to go through that money so quickly. But where there’s a will there’s a way:

Prosecutors said the fraudsters blew more than $240 million meant for kids on fancy cars, international travel and luxury real estate in Minnesota, Ohio, Kentucky, Kenya and Turkey.

Living way beyond one’s obvious means sometimes catches the attention of the authorities. And yet you can’t say the perps didn’t do at least some work for all that money:

Prosecutors said Bock and her 36-year-old accomplice, who owned the now-defunct Safari Restaurant, created fake meal counts, fraudulent invoices, and attendance sheets with bogus names of thousands of children supposedly served daily to secure additional funding from the US Department of Agriculture.

That’s got to take some time and effort, right?

There are about 70 people who have been charged as part of this fraud, “and more than 40 others have either pleaded guilty or been convicted.”

What’s not discussed in the article is that fact that Said is of Somalian ethnicity, as are most (or all) of the many other defendants except Aimee Bock. For example, here’s part of an article about some other defendants who took part in the scheme [my emphasis]:

Abdulkadir also agreed to pay $44,061,053 in restitution in conjunction with his co-defendants and must forfeit cash in several bank accounts as well as real estate that he purchased with stolen money in Minnesota and Ohio.

In a separate hearing Tuesday afternoon, Abdi Salah, 37, also pleaded guilty to a count of wire fraud in exchange for the dismissal of other charges. As a “minor participant” in the crime, he faces a recommended sentence of 21 to 27 months.

The men also face possible deportation. Like most of the defendants in the broader case, the Salah brothers are from Somalia. But unlike many of the others, they’re not U.S. citizens.

Abdi is a legal permanent resident, but Abdulkadir is in the U.S. illegally.

In December of 2021 — around the time he sent that email with the phony food invoices — Abdulkadir was fighting deportation. Prosecutors wrote in court filings that Abdulkadir failed to disclose millions in stolen money as income on his immigration paperwork. The defense countered that immigration evidence should be excluded because it could prejudice the jury.

Please read the whole thing. It’s quite something.

And let me add that I very much doubt that this Minnesota case is the sole instance of COVID fraud. There probably was a ton of it.