(
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.”
HDF’s previously unreported links to Feeding Our Future fraudsters raise red flags, particularly as HDF emerges as one of the most prolific U.S. charities operating in Gaza. Founded by Kariye in 2023, HDF raised $33 million in its first full year of operations, according to
tax filings. It’s now poised to receive a significant financial boost through the NFL’s “My Cause My Cleats” charity program. Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair, an NFL Man of the Year nominee, is
raising money for HDF, as are Baltimore Ravens safety
Sanoussi Kane and Buffalo Bills wide receiver
Josh Palmer. HDF also has high-profile backing from the likes of 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.” Kariye
hosted two fundraisers with Hamdi and King in December 2024 at a cost of $15 a ticket.