REPORT: NFL Stars Fundraise for Islamic Charity Tied to Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future Fraud Scandal

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From the Washington Free Beacon: Human Development Fund, an upstart Islamic charity touted by the National Football League and various Muslim influencers, professes to provide “hot meals” to orphans in Gaza. But a Washington Free Beacon investigation found the group’s founders have an array of links to the Feeding Our Future fraud, in which more than 80 people conspired to steal $250 million from a federal program designed to give free meals to poor Minnesota children.

HDF founder and CEO Abdirahman Kariye is an imam at Dar Al-Farooq, a predominantly Somali mosque near Minneapolis that served as a food distribution site for Feeding Our Future. HDF director of fundraising events Khalid Omar is a director of Dar Al-Farooq.

In June 2021, at the height of the fraud, Omar and Kariye celebrated Aimee Bock, the Feeding Our Future founder and mastermind of the fraud scheme, at an award ceremony for her “Outstanding leadership to the Minnesota communities.”

Omar, who emceed the event, touted the Feeding Our Future program and hailed Bock as a “furious fighter” for the initiative, according to video unearthed by Center of the American Experiment. Kariye touted Bock’s remarks at the event and accused Minnesota’s department of education of hindering the food distribution program that was central to the fraud. The celebration ended with a group of Somali women dancing around Bock and serenading her with chants of “Sweet Aimee.”

The report explains that HDF was founded by Kariye in 2023, and raised $33 million in its first full year of operations, according to tax filings.

Now the NFL’s “My Cause My Cleats” charity program is positioned to give HDF a huge financial boost, as HDF is being promoted by Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair, Baltimore Ravens safety Sanoussi Kane and Buffalo Bills wide receiver Josh Palmer.

Also supporting HDF are Sami Hamdi, a popular Muslim influencer who said he felt “euphoria” after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, and Shaun King, who has referred to Hamas as “heroes,” the Free Beacon revealed.

Free Beacon reporter Chuck Ross wrote on X:

Human Development Fund has skyrocketed since launching in 2023. Muslim influencers like Omar Suleiman, Shaun King and Sami Hamdi (who felt “euphoria” after Oct. 7) have raised money for it.

Human Development Fund founder Abdulrahim Kariye and its top fundraising official testified as a witness *for* one of the Feeding Our Future defendants.

They knew him through Dar Al-Farooq, where Kariye serves as imam. Prosecutors say Kariye lied during his testimony at the Feeding Our Future trial.

Ross added: Lots of details in the story. But here’s Kariye (left), the Human Development Fund founder, at an event in June 2021 with Feeding Our Future ringleader Aimee Bock. That’s Ilhan Omar staffer Ali Isse on the left, and Minnesota state rep Omar Fateh standing.

READ MORE from the Washington Free Beacon.

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