January
2026 | Volume 55, Issue 1
Learning
From Minnesota’s Somali Fraud Scandal
Scott W. Johnson
Power
Line
The
massive public programs fraud committed almost entirely by Somali perpetrators
has recently exploded in the national news. The controversy is centered in
Minnesota, where the amount of money bilked from American taxpayers could prove
to be as high as $9 billion. But the scandal is spreading to other states as
well. When Ryan Thorpe and Chris Rufo published an article in the November 2025
issue of City Journal linking the fraud to the funding of
Al-Shabaab—a Somali-based Sunni Islamist organization that is designated a
terrorist group by several nations, including the U.S.—President Trump took
notice and announced the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Somali
immigrants. In late December, YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a 42-minute video
that showed him knocking on the doors of Somali-run day care centers in the
Minneapolis-Saint Paul area that seemed to have no children in attendance. The
video went viral, quickly garnering more than 130 million views on X and 2.5
million views on YouTube. But while this story is new to most Americans, it is
anything but new to Minnesotans and others who have been paying it the
attention it deserves.
Long
known for having a largely Scandinavian population, Minnesota is now home to
the largest Somali population in North America, numbering roughly 100,000, most
of whom are congregated in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. The seeds of this
community were planted in the early 1990s, when the State Department directed
thousands of refugees from Somalia’s civil war to Minnesota. Except for a dip
in 2008, the immigration of Somalis into Minnesota has continued unabated,
augmented by Somalis arriving from other states. The latter likely has to do
with Minnesota’s generous welfare and charity policies. As Professor Ahmed
Samatar of Saint Paul’s Macalester College was quoted as saying in a 2015 Washington
Times story, Minnesota is “the closest thing in the United States to a
true social democratic state.”
The
massive fraud currently in the news was not the first controversy surrounding
the Somali immigrant community. Around 2015, it proved to be a fertile source
of ISIS recruits. The FBI’s Minneapolis field office devoted substantial
resources to terrorism-related issues. A September 2015 report of the House
Homeland Security Committee revealed that Minnesota led all other states in
contributing foreign fighters to ISIS. Reviewing the public cases of 58
Americans who joined or attempted to join ISIS, it found that 26 percent of
them came from Minnesota. Of ten Minnesota Somalis charged with seeking to join
ISIS in Syria, six pleaded guilty and three were convicted at trial in June
2016.
During
the trial of the three Somalis who contested the charges, it became clear,
primarily from recordings introduced into evidence, that although they gave the
outward appearance of American assimilation, they hated America. They took
advantage of educational and employment opportunities and moved into and out of
the workforce at will. At one time, all three worked at a UPS facility in a
leafy Saint Paul suburb, where they enjoyed watching ISIS videos of beheadings
during their breaks.
Foreshadowing
the fraud scandals of today, the Somalis involved in terrorism showed
themselves to be sophisticated in their creative use of social welfare
benefits. Two of four Somali ISIS recruits intercepted at New York’s JFK
airport while en route to Syria had used federal financial aid funds to pay for
their travel. One financed his planned trip to Syria with a $5,000 debit card
withdrawal on his student loan account.
In
the decade since, the controversy over terrorist recruitment of Somalis has
receded and the Somali abuse of social welfare programs has proliferated.
Child
Care Fraud
The
defrauding of Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program for day care services,
although brought dramatically to national attention by Nick Shirley in late
December, goes back more than ten years. Jeff Baillon, a Twin Cities TV
reporter, reported on day care frauds in 2013 and 2015. A year ago this month
Jay Kolls, another local reporter, went to two of the ten sites Shirley visited
and reported that one of them was guilty of 95 violations—including “no records
for 16 children”—between 2019 and 2023. But taxpayer funds continued to flow to
these programs.
An
illustrative case that arose in 2017 involved Fozia Sheik Ali, whose day care
center in south Minneapolis was suspected of billing the government over $1
million for bogus child care services. According to Special Agent Craig Lisher,
the FBI “found records that she was collecting a significant amount of money
for a much larger number of children than were actually attending the center.”
Ali’s case had an international component as well. She used a phone app to
charge Minnesota taxpayers for her stay at an $800 per night hotel in Nairobi,
and some of the illegally obtained funds were found to have been transferred
overseas, although the FBI declined to specify for what purpose. Ali pleaded
guilty in March 2018 to a charge of wire fraud and was sentenced to federal
prison.
Minnesota’s
Office of the Legislative Auditor issued a detailed report on child care fraud
in 2019. On the question of how much had been stolen, the report restricted
itself to amounts established in convictions. Because convictions were few and
far between, that only came to between $5 million and $6 million. But the
report concluded, citing the lax administration of the day care program, that
the level of fraud was likely higher. Indeed! And the laxity continues. Jim
Nobles, the legislative auditor at the time of the 2019 report, wrote a recent
column in The Minnesota Star Tribune decrying the “permissive
approach” of Minnesota’s state government that makes it “easy for fraudsters to
steal” and questioning why nothing had been done over many years to “implement
standard financial controls and oversight.”
Feeding
Our Future Fraud
In
that same Star Tribune column, Nobles wrote: “We now know that
the fraud scheme used in the state’s child care program has been used
frequently in other state human service programs.” A dramatic example of this
is the case that has become known as the Feeding Our Future fraud.
Feeding
Our Future is a nonprofit organization that served as a sponsor of sites like
day care centers and restaurants that participated in two federal nutrition
programs. During the peak Covid period, from April 2020 until January 2022,
Feeding Our Future and its sites and their vendors found it remarkably easy to
bilk these programs by filing false claims for reimbursement supported by false
meal counts, fake rosters, and bogus invoices.
Aimee
Bock was the founder and executive director of Feeding Our Future as well as
the ringleader of the fraud scheme. As the sponsor of more than 250 Feeding Our
Future sites around the state, Bock certified the accuracy of the ludicrously
inflated meal claims she submitted for reimbursement. While Feeding Our
Future’s sites and vendors are mostly Somali—as are those who have so far been
convicted in the trials involving Feeding Our Future—Bock is white, adding a
multicultural liberal element to the massive fraud.
The
free food programs were administered by the Minnesota Department of Education
(MDE) and funded by the federal Department of Agriculture. Operating under the
law adopted by Congress on account of Covid, the MDE proved a remarkably easy
mark. Feeding Our Future sites multiplied like rabbits, and funds kept rolling
out the door. In 2021 alone, Feeding Our Future siphoned off nearly $200
million of taxpayer money.
It
is important to note that suspected fraud was often never fully investigated
because government overseers were easily scared off by absurd claims of
racism—charges that continue to be leveled even today.
In
February 2021 the FBI passed on allegations of fraud in the programs to the
MDE. In April 2021 a frustrated MDE official tipped off the FBI regarding her
own suspicions. FBI forensic accountant Pauline Roase followed up in the
ensuing months by collecting relevant bank records to track the flow of funds.
FBI Special Agents Jared Kary and Travis Wilmer followed up in the field. In
the last six weeks of the investigation they posted surveillance cameras
outside twelve Feeding Our Future sites that were supposedly feeding thousands
of kids a day. The kids were nowhere to be seen.
On
January 20, 2022, the investigation went public when federal agents raided
sites in the largest such operation ever conducted in Minnesota. The following
September, United States Attorney Andrew Luger called a press conference to
announce the charges brought against the first 47 defendants in the case.
Charges have now been brought against a total of 78 defendants. The latest of
the 78 cases were charged this past November.
In
the cases resolved so far, there have been 50 guilty pleas, seven guilty
verdicts, and two acquittals. Five fugitives remain at large. One defendant has
died. Thirteen unresolved cases await trial. Bock was convicted on seven counts
of wire fraud, conspiracy, and federal programs bribery and will be sentenced
to a long prison term. The total fraud in these cases comes to some $300
million.
Medicaid
Fraud
The
Feeding Our Future fraud cases opened a window on scams involving several
Minnesota Medicaid programs. After the FBI executed search warrants in one such
case in July of last year, then-Acting United States Attorney Joe Thompson—who
until very recently was leading both the Feeding Our Future and the Medicaid
fraud prosecutions—called a press conference in September to announce criminal
charges against the first eight Medicaid fraud defendants, all of whom are
Somali.
These
initial cases were tied to Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services (HSS)
program, the purpose of which was to help people with disabilities find housing
using Medicaid funds. “Most of these cases, unlike a lot of Medicare and
Medicaid fraud cases nationally, aren’t just overbilling,” Thompson said at the
press conference. “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.” The press release distributed at the press conference
suggested that the HSS program seems to have been designed to facilitate fraud:
“By design, the Program had low barriers to entry for new providers and for
beneficiaries. The Program also had minimal requirements for reimbursement.”
Uncovering
fraud in Minnesota is like playing with Russian nesting dolls. “Many of the
owners of [the involved HSS] companies,” Thompson said, “had one or more other
companies through which they billed other Medicaid programs such as the [Early
Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention] program, the Adult
Rehabilitative Mental Health Services program, the Integrated Community Support
program, the Community Access for Disability Inclusion program, [Personal Care
Assistance] services, and other Medicaid-waivered services.” The details of
these cases were almost incidental to Thompson’s main point—that “Minnesota is
drowning in fraud.”
“It
feels never-ending,” Thompson said. “I have spent my career as a fraud
prosecutor and the depth of fraud in Minnesota takes my breath away.”
On
December 18 of last year, Thompson called another press conference to announce
charges against six more defendants in connection with Minnesota’s Medicaid
programs. The new cases involved allegedly fraudulent claims in programs for
housing, autism services, and assistance for disabled adults seeking to live
independently. “Every day we look under a rock and find a new $50 million fraud
scheme,” Thompson said.
The
total amount of money disbursed through these programs since 2018 is $18
billion. Based on his ongoing investigations, Thompson estimated that as much
as half that amount—$9 billion!—may have been paid out on fraudulent claims.
“The magnitude cannot be overstated,” Thompson said. “What we see in Minnesota
is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s a staggering,
industrial-scale fraud.” Four of the six defendants charged in December are
Minnesotan Somalis, and those involved in the uncharged cases under
investigation are almost entirely Somali.
Political
Responsibility
Two
defendants from Philadelphia, Anthony Waddell Jefferson and Lester Brown,
undertook what Thompson called “fraud tourism.” Having heard that Minnesota’s
HSS program presented an easy mark, they set up in Minnesota to become
fraudulent service providers. One wonders how word of this was able to make its
way to Philadelphia but not to the State Capitol in Saint Paul, where the
people’s elected officials are charged with protecting the public interest.
In
a Star Tribune interview, Thompson cast the net widely in
terms of responsibility: “This fraud crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s
the result of widespread failure across nearly every level of leadership in
Minnesota: Politicians who turned a blind eye. Agencies that failed to act.
Prosecutors and law enforcement who didn’t push hard enough. Reporters who
ignored the story. Community leaders who stayed silent. And a public that
wanted to believe it couldn’t happen here.”
Partly
because it’s a problem that the people can solve directly, I would focus on the
politicians. Three in particular.
The
first is Governor Tim Walz. In November 2020, Feeding Our Future sued the
Minnesota Department of Education for suspending the processing of Feeding Our
Future site applications—an action MDE officials had taken because they had
good reason to suspect that Feeding Our Future was defrauding the state. The
MDE was represented in this lawsuit by the office of Minnesota Attorney General
Keith Ellison, which resolved the lawsuit—not under court order, but
voluntarily—by backing down and agreeing to continue processing site
applications. Two years later in 2022, when the Feeding Our Future scandal
erupted and indictments were announced, Walz falsely blamed a state district
court judge—rather than his attorney general—for compelling the state to
continue payments. This was only the first of many of Walz’s dishonest
deflections of responsibility that continue to the present day. Walz will never
live down the frauds committed on the agencies under his jurisdiction.
The
second is Attorney General Ellison himself. This past December he released a
widely mocked video in which he declared, “Scammers think Minnesotans are easy
targets. They are wrong.” No, it is abundantly and increasingly clear that the
scammers have been right—in large part due to Ellison’s nonfeasance, as seen in
the story of his failure to back the MDE against Feeding Our Future in 2020.
Like Walz, Ellison continues to refuse to sit for an interview with a serious
reporter to answer questions about what he knew about the fraud and when he
knew it. Nor has anyone in the mainstream media made an issue of that fact,
which is a scandal in its own right.
The
third is U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar. Even if we leave aside the fact that
she immigrated to the U.S. as a fraudulent member of the Omar family and later
married her biological brother in her own Elmi family for further fraudulent
purposes, we could still fairly describe her as Somali Fraud Exhibit A. She
sponsored the MEALS Act that facilitated the Feeding Our Future fraud, and her
congressional district served as its epicenter. She was a friend of Salim Said,
Aimee Bock’s co-defendant in the second Feeding Our Future trial. She filmed a
promotional video at Said’s restaurant that was introduced by Said’s lawyer at
trial, although it actually served to support the charges against Said. Yet
despite these facts, Omar claims to have known nothing about the fraud.
Public
programs fraud on the scale we see today in Minnesota—and to a lesser degree
(so far at least) in other states—indicates a leadership class that has either
forgotten or no longer takes seriously the idea that public office is a public
trust. What more fitting time could there be than the 250th anniversary year of
the Declaration of Independence to restore the moral power of that idea in
irresponsible state governments like that of Minnesota?
PreviousThe Dangers of
Undermining U.S. Civil–Military Relations
Scott
W. Johnson is
a co-founder of and contributor to PowerLineblog.com. He earned his B.A. at
Dartmouth College and his J.D. at the University of Minnesota Law School and
practiced law for 35 years in the Twin Cities. A fellow of the Claremont
Institute, he has published widely on issues of public policy, including
in National Review, The Wall Street Journal, the New York
Post, The Minnesota Star Tribune, and the Washington Free Beacon. For
more than ten years he has covered Minnesota Fifth District U.S. Representative
Ilhan Omar and three major trials in Minnesota involving Somali defendants.
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/learning-from-minnesotas-somali-fraud-scandal/
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
