Fraud in Minnesomalia

[Derec]

Apparently there has been a lot of fraud in the Minnesota social services system perpetrated by the Somali immigrants.

How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch

Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in those schemes so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been stolen in three plots they are investigating. That is more than Minnesota spends annually to run its Department of Corrections. Minnesota’s fraud scandal stood out even in the context of rampant theft during the pandemic, when Americans stole tens of billions through unemployment benefits, business loans and other forms of aid, according to federal auditors.
[...]
Debate over the fraud has opened new rifts between the state’s Somali community and other Minnesotans, and has left some Somali Americans saying they are unfairly facing a new layer of suspicion against all of them, rather than the small group accused of fraud. Critics of the Walz administration say that the fraud persisted partly because state officials were fearful of alienating the Somali community in Minnesota. Governor Walz, who has instituted new fraud-prevention safeguards, defended his administration’s actions.
The episode has raised broader questions for some residents about the sustainability of Minnesota’s Scandinavian-modeled system of robust safety net programs bankrolled by high taxes. That system helped create an environment that drew immigrants to the state over many decades, including tens of thousands of Somali refugees after their country descended into civil war in the 1990s.
[...]
In another program, aimed to provide therapy for autistic children, prosecutors said providers recruited children in Minneapolis’s Somali community, falsely certifying them as qualifying for autism treatment and paying their parents kickbacks for their cooperation.
[...]
Ms. Hassan is of Somali ancestry, as are all but eight of the 86 people charged in the meals, housing and autism therapy fraud cases, according to prosecutors. A vast majority are American citizens, by birth or naturalization.
Prosecutors have so far charged one provider, Asha Farhan Hassan, 29, with wire fraud. They say she and business partners stole $14 million.
[...]
[Hassan's lawyer] Mr. Pacyga, who also has represented other defendants in the fraud cases, said that some involved became convinced that state agencies were tolerating, if not tacitly allowing, the fraud.
“No one was doing anything about the red flags,” he said. “It was like someone was stealing money from the cookie jar and they kept refilling it.”
[...]
Kayseh Magan, a Somali American who formerly worked as a fraud investigator for the Minnesota attorney general’s office, said elected officials in the state — and particularly those who were part of the state’s Democratic-led administration — were reluctant to take more assertive action in response to allegations in the Somali community.
“There is a perception that forcefully tackling this issue might cause political backlash among the Somali community, which is a core voting bloc” for Democrats, said Mr. Magan, who is among the few prominent figures in the Somali community to speak about the fraud.

Yet another reason why the Knucklehead was the wrong choice for Kamala's running mate, and why he should not be considered for 2028. Hell, he should not even be reelected governor in 2026!

 

[Politesse]

Dutifully repeating the president's speeches? Squawk, parrot, squawk.

 

[ZiprHead]

No disdain for the people actually committing the fraud?

 

[ZiprHead]

Dutifully repeating the president's speeches? Squawk, parrot, squawk.

Quiet, Piggy.

 

[laughing dog]

There is no excuse for the fraud. There is no evidence at this time that Gov. Walz was involved.

I happen to think two terms is enough for any governor. The last Mn governor to run for a 3rd term was DFLer Rudy Perpich and he got beat.

Props to Derec for posting this story. It must have been difficult since it is a negative abiut a white man.

 

[scombrid]

As if you care about fraud.

No disdain for the people actually committing the fraud?

GOP just let the head of a 1.8 Billion Dollar Ponzi scheme off the hook. Doesn’t look like fraud actually bothers them. Look at Rick Scott for example.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Surely some of the accused are guilty and surely many of these people are correctly identified as Somalis. No one here is arguing with that and neither am I. However, I __do__ note that much of the language is speculative about motivations of persons such as Democrats and Minnesotans. Moreover, there is an interesting timeline and federal accountability angle that is being completely ignored.

Example: One of the biggest frauds in these cases is a federal program even IF being administered by the Minnesota Dept of Education, i.e. the funding started with the federal Dept of Agriculture. Likewise, these are federal crimes even if occurring mostly in this one state and many other federal crimes by different groups occurred across the country, even if these people are the focus of this news piece. As a logical consequence that means that federal agents are the ones who do the charges and investigations, or at least mostly so. Additionally, these crimes began during the pandemic in 2020 when Trump was President and what did they take advantage of in order to commit their fraud? It was regulatory waivers by the federal Dept of Agriculture that created gaps and opportunity to commit these fraudulent acts in that was in 2020, i.e. when Trump was President. While Trump has been very much in favor of destroying regulatory red tape, I won't blame him 100% for this since during the pandemic there was a bipartisan effort to streamline things. However, the fraud did begin on his watch or at least no one is focusing on that and a completely different narrative could be constructed by focusing on Trump's involvement here. Lastly, the observations about the fraud began in 2021 after Biden became President and this is when competent federal agents began investigating. In other words, we could say that the Biden administration began looking at data in April 2021 and this increased suspicion escalated and transformed into investigative work to finally search warrants based on probable cause in January 2022. Note that we're still discussing federal work on the fraud and the state of Minnesota was not playing a role because these were not state crimes.

The above is one example of the different perpetrators and schemes, crimes. All do not fit the same timeline or route to commit federal offenses.

Here is more data on this example and the timeline from a government DoJ website:

The Federal Child Nutrition Program and Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme

As set forth in the information, Hassan and others devised and carried out a scheme to defraud the Summer Food Service Program and Child and Adult Care Food Program (together, the “Federal Child Nutrition Program”), a program designed to provide meals to hungry children. MDE administers the Federal Child Nutrition Program in Minnesota.

Beginning in April 2020, Aimee Bock, the founder and executive director of Feeding Our Future, oversaw a massive scheme to defraud the Federal Child Nutrition Program carried out by sites under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. Bock and Feeding Our Future sponsored entities that submitted fraudulent reimbursement claims and fake documentation while purporting to serve hundreds and, in many instances, thousands of children per day. Bock and her company sponsored the opening of nearly 200 Federal Child Nutrition Program sites despite knowing that the sites intended to and did submit fraudulent claims.

While using Smart Therapy to defraud the EIDBI autism program, Hassan also used Smart Therapy to engage in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme to defraud the Federal Child Nutrition Program. Hassan enrolled Smart Therapy in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future in July 2020.

Shortly after enrolling in the program, Hassan began submitting fraudulent claims to Feeding Our Future. Hassan fraudulently claimed that Smart Therapy was serving breakfast and lunch to exactly 300 children a day, 7 days per week. Hassan prepared and submitted fraudulent meal counts, attendance rosters, and invoices in support of the fraudulent claims. Hassan submitted fraudulent invoices purporting to show that a food vendor company called S & S Catering provided meals to be served at the Smart Therapy site. By April 2021, Hassan claimed to be serving approximately 1,200 meals per day to children, 7 days per week, at Smart Therapy.

Between 2020 and 2021, Hassan claimed to have served nearly 200,000 meals to children at the Smart Therapy site, for which she claimed to be entitled to approximately $465,000 in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.

“Abusing publicly funded health care programs for personal profit is an act of duplicity, greed, and a betrayal of the most vulnerable in our community,” said Special Agent in Charge Alvin M. Winston Sr. of FBI Minneapolis. “The alleged fraud by Hassan resulted in the theft of millions of dollars intended to serve and support children in need. The FBI and our partners will not stop pursuing those who unscrupulously exploit government programs. We will secure justice for the taxpayers of Minnesota.”

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Health and Human Services – Office of Inspector General, the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, and the United States Postal Inspection Service.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rebecca E. Kline, Harry M. Jacobs, and Daniel W. Bobier are prosecuting the case.

An information is merely an allegation, and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Updated September 24, 2025

 

[Toni]

It is unknown whether similar frauds have occurred in other states. Full stop.

I can understand how such fraud may have come to happen among a group of recently arrived immigrants from any country where English is not the first language and where government systems are quite different and quite chaotic. Somalis who immigrated to the US were fleeing civil war, violence and famine. Somalia had been declared a failed state and many who arrived in the US during the 1990’s had been living temporarily in other countries, in refugee camps. Certainly we are all aware that there are plenty of US employers who are willing to employ recent immigrants under some very harsh circumstances that immigrants may not realize are illegal or may not feel they have a choice about accepting such ill treatment. They need money to survive.

I don’t know enough about how this particular group came to participate in fraudulently participating in a federal program. I do know that elsewhere in this country, there are places where poverty is so extensive that some families have worked to get their ( white, US citizens going back many generations) kids classified as having serious learning disabilities because that got the kids —or their families needed money to survive by way of Social Security disabilities benefits . So please let’s not pretend that this is a Minnesota problem or a Somali problem or an immigrant problem. Or even a poor person’s problem. Please look at the plethora of fraud that Trump, his family members and his various companies have engaged in over the years. For one example.

If Walz was supposed to know everything that was happening in his state, then why didn’t Trump know? It was part of a federal funding scheme—under his personal purview if anyone’s.

 

[thebeave]

There is no excuse for the fraud. There is no evidence at this time that Gov. Walz was involved.

I happen to think two terms is enough for any governor. The last Mn governor to run for a 3rd term was DFLer Rudy Perpich and he got beat.

Props to Derec for posting this story. It must have been difficult since it is a negative abiut a white man.

Seriously? Unless this X account from the Minnesota DHS Employees is a fake (it has a blue checkmark indicating its verified), he knew what was going on all along:

Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz 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.

 

[laughing dog]

There is no excuse for the fraud. There is no evidence at this time that Gov. Walz was involved.

I happen to think two terms is enough for any governor. The last Mn governor to run for a 3rd term was DFLer Rudy Perpich and he got beat.

Props to Derec for posting this story. It must have been difficult since it is a negative abiut a white man.

Seriously? Unless this X account from the Minnesota DHS Employees is a fake (it has a blue checkmark indicating its verified), he knew what was going on all along:

Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz 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.

It’s cute you believe everything on the Internet, especially from X.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

(1) There are more than 7000+ employees in the Minnesota Dept of Human Services. The count of persons in this twitter account that it claims to represent (probably a mailing list and probably top-down) is only 480. That is < 6.8%. In the 2024 Presidential election almost 47% of Minnesotans voted for Trump/Vance. So this group can easily be the extremist wing of the Republican party employees in this department. They can also be just 1 person or an AI.*
(2) The group claims that Walz suppressed reporting mechanisms because he didn't want the government to appear racist, but...

(a) these are federal crimes and they can be reported to FBI and other federal agencies, not merely state agencies;
(b) It actually __would__ be racist to cast suspicion on an ethnic group merely because they were making big claims and as discussed in prior post, there actually were regulatory waivers that were implemented during this period by the federal government, i.e. the Dept of Agriculture;
(c) someone did actually do their job and tip off the FBI in April 2021 when Biden was President and the federal govt took care of the investigation, eventually convicting people of fraud. (at least for the biggest issue)
(d) Trump's administration was completely fooled by the fraud and had failed to analyze the data of money going out. Where's the outrage?​

(3) While it is theoretically possible that Walz could have pressured employees not to report anything or conduct investigations, he could not actually stop them from reporting to federal agencies. It isn't possible that Walz could physically or mentally block employees from reporting to the federal agencies who could handle investigations: FBI, DoJ, and the office Inspector General at the Dept of Agriculture.

*Newsweek:

These claims have not been verified and the identity of the X account owner is not known, or their political persuasion.

This X account has been active since 2023 and they say whatever they want to say. How can it be claimed that they can't say anything when they've been saying what they want to say?

It's also not the official Dept of Human Services X account which is here:

https://x.com/MinnesotaDHS

Active since 2011.

 

[Emily Lake]

Autism therapy fraud is a thing that is going on in multiple states right now. It spans from diagnoses and treatment for non-existent people, to fraudulent diagnoses for non-autistic people, to billing for hours of therapy not actually delivered, to charging one-on-one therapies that are actually group settings, to billing for a clinical specialist's time when it was actually more like babysitting provided by a high school graduate who had a week of training to supervise a young child.

 

[bilby]

This X account has been active since 2023 and they say whatever they want to say. How can it be claimed that they can't say anything when they've been saying what they want to say?

It's astonishing to me how much I hear from people who are claiming to have been silenced.

It seems to me that if someone is being silenced, the very least they could do is to shut the fuck up.

 

[Derec]

Dutifully repeating the president's speeches? Squawk, parrot, squawk.

What are you talking about? Which president? I was quoting a New York Times article, not anybody's speeches.

 

[Derec]

No disdain for the people actually committing the fraud?

Of course I have disdain for people actually committing the fraud. But that does not mean that we should not mention how the state authorities allowed the fraud to happen and persist due to a combination of political correctness, identity politics and electoral calculus.

 

[Derec]

There is no excuse for the fraud. There is no evidence at this time that Gov. Walz was involved.

Nobody is claiming that the Knucklehead was himself involved in fraud. I would be surprised if he was.
But he is presiding over a state government that allowed it to happen and persist. He is responsible because the buck stops with him.

I happen to think two terms is enough for any governor. The last Mn governor to run for a 3rd term was DFLer Rudy Perpich and he got beat.

I would agree. I like the idea of reasonable term limits.

Props to Derec for posting this story. It must have been difficult since it is a negative abiut a white man.

Is everything about skin color with you?

 

[Derec]

As if you care about fraud.

I do.

GOP just let the head of a 1.8 Billion Dollar Ponzi scheme off the hook. Doesn’t look like fraud actually bothers them. Look at Rick Scott for example.

What is this whataboutism in aid of? Two wrongs do not make a right.

 

[Derec]

I can understand how such fraud may have come to happen among a group of recently arrived immigrants from any country where English is not the first language and where government systems are quite different and quite chaotic.

Recently arrived? The big wave of Somalis flooding into the US was in the 1990s. Hardly "recent".

Somalis who immigrated to the US were fleeing civil war, violence and famine. Somalia had been declared a failed state and many who arrived in the US during the 1990’s had been living temporarily in other countries, in refugee camps. Certainly we are all aware that there are plenty of US employers who are willing to employ recent immigrants under some very harsh circumstances that immigrants may not realize are illegal or may not feel they have a choice about accepting such ill treatment. They need money to survive.

And that makes fraud ok?

So please let’s not pretend that this is a Minnesota problem or a Somali problem or an immigrant problem. Or even a poor person’s problem.

It's not solely a Somali problem. But it is disproportionally a Somali problem in Minnesota. And part of the reason is that Minnesota state government did not want to upset the Somali community by actually enforcing the rules.

Please look at the plethora of fraud that Trump, his family members and his various companies have engaged in over the years. For one example.

Again with Trump. Is your Ilk constitutionally incapable of not dragging him into every single thread on here?

If Walz was supposed to know everything that was happening in his state, then why didn’t Trump know? It was part of a federal funding scheme—under his personal purview if anyone’s.

It may have been federally funded, but it is administered by the states.

 

[Derec]

Surely some of the accused are guilty and surely many of these people are correctly identified as Somalis. No one here is arguing with that and neither am I. However, I __do__ note that much of the language is speculative about motivations of persons such as Democrats and Minnesotans.

Speculative, perhaps, but a reasonable inference given how deeply involved in identity politics the current Democratic Party is. Blaming Somalis for fraud is simply not woke.

Moreover, there is an interesting timeline and federal accountability angle that is being completely ignored.

It's a state run program even if it is federally funded.

 

[laughing dog]

There is no excuse for the fraud. There is no evidence at this time that Gov. Walz was involved.

Nobody is claiming that the Knucklehead was himself involved in fraud. I would be surprised if he was.
But he is presiding over a state government that allowed it to happen and persist. He is responsible because the buck stops with him.

Technically, yes. Administratively, no.

I happen to think two terms is enough for any governor. The last Mn governor to run for a 3rd term was DFLer Rudy Perpich and he got beat.

I would agree. I like the idea of reasonable term limits.

Props to Derec for posting this story. It must have been difficult since it is a negative abiut a white man.

Is everything about skin color with you?

Asks the author if “Minnesomalia” without a hint of irony.