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Rampant Fraud and Betrayal in Minnesota
Barry MacDonald — Editorial
Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe published in City Journal an investigation of the enormous fraud and criminality committed by some in the Somali community in Minneapolis: “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer.” This report elevated the story to national prominence. The New York Times followed with an essay soon afterwards: “How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services on Tim Walz’s Watch.”
An eruption of information has come forth within a couple of weeks. Much of the recent revelations have built on the diligent reporting done in Minnesota over many years by Bill Glahn, Center for the American Experiment, Alpha News, and Powerline blog. The following are important aspects of the crime:
The Minnesota Department of Human Services posted on X under the title “Minnesota Staff Fraud Reporting Commentary.” The following comments purportedly represent the views of 480 current staff:
“Tim Walz is 100 percent responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz [Governor of Minnesota] know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports. Instead of partnership, we got the full weight of retaliation by Tim Walz, certain DFL [ Democratic-Farmer-Labor] members and an indifferent mainstream media. It’s scary, isolating and left us wondering who we can turn to. In addition to retaliating against whistleblowers, Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance. Media and politicians supporting Tim Walz or the DFL-agenda attacked whistleblowers who were trying to raise red flags on fraudulent activities. This is a cascade of systemic failures leading up to Tim Walz. Agency leaders appointed by Tim Walz willfully disregarded rules and laws to keep fraud reports quiet — even to the extent of threatening families of whistleblowers.”
This is a remarkable document. Usually, bureaucracy works hand in glove with the Democratic party. The more money and the larger the number of people who cycle the money through the system, the sturdier the roots of social services grow in society. In this case the state personnel in Minnesota were so alarmed at the scope of the fraud that they felt compelled to draw attention to the fraud. The amount of fraud must surely be egregious.
Rufo and Thorp comment:
“If you were to design a welfare program to facilitate fraud, it would probably look a lot like Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) program. The HSS program, the first of its kind in the country, was launched with a noble goal: To help seniors, addicts, the disabled, and the mentally ill secure housing. It was designed with ‘low barriers to entry’ and ‘minimal requirements for reimbursement.’”
The HSS program was designed with the best intentions of Minnesotans to lift up those who could not help themselves. Yet their good-hearted generosity was leveraged against them by a criminal portion of the Somali community that does not appreciate the kindness offered to them.
Rufo and Thorp go on:
“The Housing Stabilization Services fraud is hardly the first or most significant cause of corruption. In fact, it is small beer compared to the Feeding Our Future fraud, which is the largest case (so far) of COVID-era fraud, the daycare fraud scandal, which barely got attention, or the autism services frauds. . . . Fraud is everywhere, including in elections. It is the bedrock of power for the Somalis who now run the Democratic Party in Minneapolis, where Ilhan Omar is one of the key power players as the Congresswoman from the 5th District. Somalis are so powerful that our politics are now determined by which rival clan can muster the most power. Even Jacob Frey, the Minneapolis mayor who just scraped by to win reelection against a Somali candidate, campaigns in Somalia. . . . Frey was able to win reelection by creating a coalition between white voters and a Somali clan that competes with Omar Fateh’s.”
Rufo and Thorp quote David Gaither, a former Minnesota state senator and a nonprofit leader
“The media does not want to put a light on this. . . . And if you’re a politician, it’s a significant disadvantage for you to alienate the Somali community. If you don’t win the Somali community, you can’t win Minneapolis. And if you don’t win Minneapolis, you can’t win the state. End of story.”
There are parallels between Minneapolis and Britain. In Britain, both the Labour Party and the Tory Party before them have chosen over decades not to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into Britain. The political establishment has favored the mostly Muslim immigrants over the British middle and working classes. Newly arrived illegal immigrants are provided with lavish housing at hotels at public expense. The men among the immigrants are a menace to the British women and girls nearby them. For decades, gangs of mostly Pakistani men have groomed and gang-raped teenaged girls. Reports of this egregious abuse have been either ignored or suppressed by both the local and national political establishment. The police themselves have been alleged to connive with, and even participate with, the rapist gangs. Muslim immigrants in Britain have become numerous enough that they are a significant segment of voters. British lawmakers solicit Muslims votes, even when native Britons are betrayed, and British society, culture, and law are trashed.
Joe Thompson is the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota who investigated, brought charges, and prosecuted fraud cases in Minnesota. Minnesota State Senator Mark Koran cites Joe Thompson’s answer to the question of how many criminal referrals came from the State of Minnesota: “None.” In other words, there were no criminal referrals for fraud that originated from Keith Ellison, Tim Walz, or the heads of Minnesota agencies. It was the U.S. Attorney who acted against the fraud in Minneapolis — not Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, nor Governor Tim Walz.
U.S. Attorney Thompson announced the indictments at a press conference and said:
“‘The vast majority’ of the Housing Stabilization Service program was fraudulent. . . . Most of these cases, unlike a lot of Medicare fraud and Medicaid fraud cases nationally, aren’t just overbilling. . . . These are often just purely fictitious companies solely created to defraud the system, and that’s unique in the extent to which we have that here in Minnesota. . . . [many firms enrolled in the program] operated out of dilapidated storefronts or rundown office buildings. [Many owners of companies] billed other Medicaid programs, such as the EIDBI autism program, the . . . Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services program, the Integrated Community Support program, the Community Access for Disability Inclusion program, PCA services, and other Medicaid-waivered services. . . . What we see are schemes stacked upon schemes, draining resources meant for those in need. It feels never-ending. . . . I have spent my career as a fraud prosecutor and the depth of the fraud in Minnesota takes my breath away. . . . From Feeding Our Future to Housing Stabilization Services, and now autism services, these massive fraud schemes form a web that has stolen billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Each case we bring exposes another strand of this network. . . . This network [of] fraud schemes . . . form a web . . . [that has stolen] billions of dollars in taxpayer money.”
Rufo and Thorp write that Feeding Our Future, HSS, and the autism services cases are not the only examples. Twenty-eight other cases of fraud have been discovered since Walz became governor in 2019. Most of these huge enterprises of fraud were perpetrated by members of the Somali community, according to two former FBI officials who spoke with City Journal.
Rufo and Thorp write that 59 people have been convicted of fraudulent schemes so far in Minnesota. At least $1 billion of taxpayers’ money was stolen, which is more than Minnesota spends annually on its Department of Corrections. The dollar amount of the fraud that is widely accepted so far in news reports is $1 billion, but some estimates could go as high as $9 billion or more. Thompson referred to the looting of 14 Medicaid services in Minnesota as “staggering industrial-scale fraud.” Half of the $18 billion spent on Medicaid could have been fraudulent, Thompson said. Various agencies of the federal government are now investigating fraud in the Somali communities, not only in Minnesota but also throughout the U.S. Hopefully, the truth will come to light.
Rufo and Thorp connect the dots between fraud in Minnesota and money sent to Somalia:
“The Somali fraud rings have sent huge sums in remittances, or money transfers, from Minnesota to Somalia. According to reports, an estimated 40 percent of households in Somalia get remittances from abroad. In 2023 alone, the Somali diaspora sent back $1.7 billion — more than the Somali government’s budget for that year. According to Glenn Kerns, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who spent 14 years on a federal Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Somalis ran a sophisticated money network, spanning from Seattle to Minneapolis, and were routing significant amounts of cash on commercial flights from the Seattle airport to the hawala networks in Somalia. One of these networks, Kerns discovered, sent $20 million abroad in a single year. . . . The amount of money was staggering.”
Kerns investigated the hawalas in Somalia that received the money transfers. Kerns found, primarily through human sources, that significant funds were being sent from America to Al-Shabaab through hawalas networks in Somalia. “Whether the money was intended for Al-Shabaab or not, they were taking a cut,” said Kerns. Al-Shabaab is a terrorist group aligned with Al Qaeda.
The story of Somali fraud in Minneapolis is a cautionary tale. The criminality that occurred in Minnesota is a culmination of what happens when DEI policies come together with unvetted mass immigration. Democrats see nothing wrong with open borders and unlimited benefits bestowed on both legal and illegal immigrants. The huge amount of money that was stolen by organized crime in Minnesota was taken from the truly needy, says Minnesota State Senator Julia Coleman, who sees cuts in aid to nursing homes and to special education programs in schools. Those needy people were betrayed by the pompous, self-righteous hypocrites of the Walz administration. These elite Democrats in Minnesota believe there is no end of taxpayer money, so they can shrug off a billion dollars, or more, of fraud. Middle- and working-class Americans suffer when large numbers of foreigners come to live in the U.S. without the intention of abiding by American laws. Americans are justified in our expectations that immigrants must assimilate to American culture. Generations before us understood the value of American citizenship and the melting pot. Immigrants of the past wanted to become Americans. Too many newcomers today are ungrateful and eager to take advantage of our generosity. They don’t care to become Americans in their hearts — they would rather cheat. *
