When the Department of Justice hailed the arrest of Abdikerm Eidleh in Mogadishu, Somalia, last month as a breakthrough in its efforts to root out fraud in American social service programs, it vowed that “the long arm of justice” would hunt down anyone stealing U.S. taxpayer money, even those who were halfway across the globe.
Mr. Eidleh had been described by U.S. officials as a central figure in the Minnesota pandemic fraud scandal, in which millions of dollars meant for Covid relief were misused or laundered. The case became a fixation for President Trump.
For years, the U.S. government searched for anyone involved in the crime. The authorities accused Mr. Eidleh of stealing money meant to feed thousands of low-income children during the pandemic. The Department of Justice said his arrest was a turning point in the yearslong investigation into the scheme, and thanked the National Intelligence and Security Agency of Somalia “for their outstanding partnership in locating and apprehending” him in Mogadishu.
But nearly two weeks later, Mr. Eidleh remains in Somali custody and his path to trial in the United States has hit several roadblocks, putting a swift victory for law enforcement on hold in a nation Mr. Trump has repeatedly disparaged.
Somalia and the United States lack an extradition treaty, and the Somali Constitution bars sending a criminal defendant overseas in the absence of one. Members of Mr. Eidleh’s powerful clan in Mogadishu have protested his arrest, possibly making it harder for Somali officials to sign off on his transfer.
“The arrest is just the first step and it may prove to be an uphill battle to get him here and put him on trial,” said Joseph H. Thompson, a former federal prosecutor who oversaw the case against Mr. Eidleh. “There are legal and diplomatic hurdles, which may be exacerbated by our relationship with Somalia.”
Officials at the Justice Department and the State Department declined to answer questions about how Mr. Eidleh’s extradition may be carried out and the challenges they face. A Somali government spokesman also declined to comment.
Federal prosecutors in 2022 charged Mr. Eidleh with 31 felonies, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit bribery and money laundering in what the Justice Department called one of America’s largest fraud schemes. Mr. Eidleh banked more than $5 million from kickbacks and bribes, the department said.
Mr. Trump used the wider scandal to describe Somalis as “garbage” last year, and more recently said that Somalia is “not even a country.” Somalia’s government has responded cautiously to Mr. Trump’s insults. It maintains close security ties with Washington and has cooperated with the Pentagon to launch frequent airstrikes against the insurgent group Al Shabab.
It is unclear how closely the Somali government worked with the United States to find and arrest Mr. Eidleh. The U.S. discovered Mr. Eidleh’s location using his cellphone before Somali intelligence conducted the raid, according to two Somali security officials who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Somalia’s national security and intelligence agency detained him around midnight on June 25 in the Garasbaley district of Mogadishu.
Mr. Eidleh had been living in Burnsville, Minn. He returned to Somalia in 2022. Later that year, the charges against him were unsealed in the United States, but he was living in plain sight, according to family and clan members as well as senior Somali officials.
Mr. Eidleh, 42, went peacefully when he was arrested, according to Faiza Lidleh, a niece. She said she visited him in detention on Monday along with another relative and found him in a large, clean cell with a single bed and a high ceiling. He wore a T-shirt and a traditional Somali macawis, a sarong-like robe, she said.
“He seemed very sad and disappointed,” she said in an interview, adding that he was spending time reading the Quran.
A judge sentenced Aimee Bock, the head of Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the investigation, to more than 41 years in prison in May. Mr. Eidleh was the most significant player among the few that remained at large this year, said Mr. Thompson.
“As Aimee Bock’s right-hand man, he recruited people into the scheme, helped bring new sites under Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship, and shook participants down for kickbacks,” Mr. Thompson said. “Bringing him back from Somalia would be an extraordinary achievement.”
He cautioned, however, that there was “no standard playbook for an extradition effort like this,” adding that such requests tend to be time-consuming and diplomatically complex.
The arrest has drawn scrutiny in both Somalia and Minnesota, a state whose significant ethnic Somali minority has faced intense political pressure, in part because the majority of people charged in the fraud case have been of Somali origin.
Somali community leaders have said that individuals who have committed crimes should be held accountable, but they have also criticized the hostile rhetoric of Mr. Trump and other Republicans who have portrayed the diaspora as unscrupulous grifters.
In Somalia, the arrest has provoked loud protests from supporters who say that, as a Somali, Mr. Eidleh should face justice at home. Mr. Eidleh’s supporters, who are mainly from his ethnic clan in his home region of Galgaduud, have argued that any legal accusations against him should be settled in Somalia, where he now lives with his family. Members of the clan fought against U.S. forces in the early 1990s, killing 18 American soldiers in a 1993 incident that saw hundreds of Somalis killed.
“We want him to attend court hearings in Somalia and see whether he is found guilty or acquitted,” said one clan elder, Qoordhere Jama, who visited Mr. Eidleh in detention on Tuesday. Mr. Jama said that the Somali government had rejected an attempt to secure a lawyer for Mr. Eidleh.
Mr. Eidleh’s nationality has become a focus in the case. While members of his ethnic clan and family say he is Somali, the Department of Justice says he is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Ethiopia.
Nema Milaninia, a U.S. lawyer with Freshfields who specializes in extradition, said the United States may have emphasized its partnership with Somalia when it announced the arrest in order to pave the way for a voluntary transfer by the Somali government.
If Mr. Eidleh were to be transferred to the U.S. by the Somali government voluntarily, it would likely circumvent any potential legal challenges to his removal, Mr. Milaninia said. “The legality is really governed by Somali law and Somalia’s sovereign discretion and not really by the existence of a treaty,” he said.
The arrest comes at a delicate moment for the government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia. Voters took to the streets in June to protest Parliament’s decision to extend Mr. Mohamud’s time in office, leading to deadly violence.
But even if the case becomes another political crisis, it will be difficult for Somalia to resist Washington’s desire to see Mr. Eidleh tried in the U.S., said Samira Gaid, a Somali political analyst.
“Somalia is not able to resist America in any way,” she said. “America is one of the countries who can make it very painful if you resist.”
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