(ABC 6 News) – The first defendant in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

RELATED: New batch of Feeding Our Future indictments brings total defendants up to 70

According to a press release from U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, 51-year-old Mohamed Ismail of Savage, MN was sentenced Tuesday.

The release states that Ismail has also been ordered to pay $47,920,514 in restitution money.

The defendant was convicted this past June for several charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.

Ismail was sentenced today in U.S. District Court by Judge Nancy E. Brasel. When handing down the
sentence, Judge Brasel commented that “The taxpayers in Minnesota are rightfully outraged by the
brazenness and the scope of [Ismail’s] crime. The evidence at trial was frankly breathtaking.”

Judge Brasel also emphasized that during a disaster, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, “many of us were
taught to look for the helpers . . . when the world was at its most vulnerable [Ismail] decided not to
be a helper, but to be a thief.”