(Center of the American Experiment) — For Liban Alishire, the JigJiga is truly up.
This week, the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota sent out a press release announcing the latest guilty plea in the Feeding Our Future free-food scandal. Liban Yasin Alishire, defendant No. 36 (of 50) in the case, became the sixth person to plead guilty. Alishire made a brief appearance in federal court Tuesday afternoon.
Alishire was the lead defendant in the indictment that covered activity centered around the JigJiga Business Center located on East Lake Street in Minneapolis.
Along with another defendant, Alishire owns an adult day care located at the same address. Unrelated to their indictment in the free-food scandal, the Department of Human Services (DHS) placed their license in “conditional status” in early 2022 and issued a correction order last month. Nonetheless, their adult day care continues to receive payments from DHS, which have totaled nearly $1.8 million over the past five years.
The Star Tribune reports that Alishire is no longer an owner of the adult day care. The Star Tribune reports that the adult day care has received $5 million from DHS over the years. Alishire continues to be listed as the agent of record with DHS for the facility.
Like many of his fellow free-food defendants, Alishire is a serial entrepreneur. He appears to have started more than a dozen companies over the past decade, six of which are mentioned by the U.S. attorney in his indictment.
Alishire and his two business partners took $2.4 million out of the free-food programs, under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future, according to his guilty plea. Alishire kept $712,000 for himself. As part of the plea deal, he will return the money.
He will also forfeit a beach resort in Kenya and an apartment in Nairobi purchased with the proceeds of the fraud, along with a Ford pickup truck, a small boat and a trailer.
Bill Glahn
Bill Glahn is an Adjunct Policy Fellow with Center of the American Experiment.
