MINNEAPOLIS, October 29 (Aalimi Nation) – A federal judge in Minnesota has sentenced restaurant operator Salim Said to 30 years in prison for his part in a pandemic-era scheme that defrauded a federal child nutrition programme, a case that has become one of the most closely followed fraud prosecutions in the state.

Said, who ran Safari Restaurant in south Minneapolis, was sentenced on Wednesday, October 28, by US District Judge Nancy Brasel. He was convicted at a 2025 trial alongside Aimee Bock, the founder of the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, on nearly two dozen counts that included wire fraud, conspiracy, federal programmes bribery and money laundering.

Prosecutors said Said submitted fraudulent reimbursement claims for 21 consecutive months, inflating meal counts and listing children who did not exist. They said his restaurant claimed to serve about 6,000 meals a day, while FBI surveillance cameras showed roughly 40 people a day collecting food.

According to prosecutors, Said was responsible for about $44 million in fraud, part of it carried out by others he recruited. They said he expanded the operation through a nonprofit that claimed to run meal sites in Willmar, St. Cloud and Mankato, and used the proceeds to buy a $1.2 million home, commercial real estate and an $87,000 pickup truck. He was ordered to pay more than $44 million in restitution.

Assistant US Attorney Rebecca Kline argued that public programmes depend on trust and that the crime would affect the state for generations. Prosecutors had sought a 40-year sentence and described Said as an architect of the wider scheme, which they put at about $250 million, while acknowledging that he was not involved in every stolen dollar.

Said's lawyer, Barry Zone, had asked for a 12-year sentence. He argued that a 40-year term would not be justice and disputed the government's claim that Said designed the scheme. Zone pointed to Said's family background and to letters of support from relatives. At trial Said denied the allegations, but at sentencing he told the court he was "deeply sorry" for his involvement.

Judge Brasel told Said that he had "taken the reputation of our state down with you", according to court coverage, and described his conduct as "the breaking of the public's faith in government". She said she hoped that one day "Minnesota and fraud" would no longer appear in the same sentence.

The sentence follows that of Bock, who was sentenced in May to about 41.5 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $240 million in restitution. Bock has filed a notice of appeal against both her conviction and her sentence.

The case has also become a political issue in the United States. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticised the scheme, mocked Minnesota's Democratic Governor Tim Walz for failing to stop it, and cited it as grounds for an immigration crackdown in the state's largest cities. Walz announced in January that he would not seek re-election. The reports on Said's sentencing did not describe a specific statement from Trump on the sentence itself.