A man suspected of orchestrating a fraud scheme worth some $300 million in US taxpayer funds has been arrested in Somalia, his home country, and flown back to Minnesota to face charges. The case is linked to the "Feeding Our Future" scandal, one of the largest pandemic-era fraud schemes uncovered in the United States, in which federal child nutrition programme funds were allegedly siphoned off on a massive scale.

The suspect, named in reports as Eidleh, had reportedly fled the US before being tracked down and detained overseas, with authorities then arranging his return to Minnesota to answer the charges. The case forms part of a wider, high-profile investigation into fraudulent claims made against federal food assistance programmes during the Covid-19 pandemic, which prosecutors say cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.