The woman who was at the center of the viral fraud investigation by Nick Shirley has pleaded guilty to fraud related to a Minneapolis day care she owned.
Prosecutors say 50-year-old Fahima Mahamud owned the Future Leaders Early Learning Center and charged the federal government $854,000 in reimbursements for the Feeding Our Future scam.
She also fraudulently claimed to have provided up to 60,000 meals for needy children on a monthly basis during the scam.
Rather than use the money to feed needy children, she used the vast majority of the ill-gotten gains to buy real estate. Among those purchases was an autism center that billed the federal government $3.1 million over the last five years.
She billed the federal government for child-care expenses as part of the Child Care Assistance Program and was able to scam $4.6 million from the government.
Mahamud pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, but a sentencing date has not yet been scheduled.
Prosecutors said she booked a flight to London in February immediately after alerting the state that her learning center was shutting down.
News video footage from KARE-TV showed Mahamud walking into the courthouse while wearing full-body Islamic garb that covered her face as well.
Mahamud received the largest amount of reimbursement from the Child Care Assistance Program, which totaled about $4.6 million, after submitting over 13,000 fraudulent claims from 2022 until Dec. 2025.
RELATED: Top scammer of ‘Feeding Our Future’ fraud in Minnesota NAILED with painful sentence
She also fraudulently claimed to have provided up to 60,000 meals for needy children on a monthly basis during the scam.
Mahamud did not respond to requests for comment from a KARE reporter at the courthouse.
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Autism center, Feeding our future, Nick shirley, Scam, Daycare fraud, Autism fraud, Minnesota, Politics