Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times,
When 200 federal agents raided dozens of Minnesota homes and businesses on Jan. 20, 2022, policy analyst Bill Glahn took notice. So did a lot of other people—at first.
Aimee Bock (C), founder and executive director of the nonprofit organization Feeding Our Future, arrives at the Minneapolis federal courthouse with her attorney, Ken Udoibok (R) in Minneapolis on March 19, 2025. Kerem Yücel/Minnesota Public Radio via AP
An initial blast of news coverage trumpeted an emerging multimillion-dollar welfare-fraud scandal. Then “it just vanished from the radar” of most media outlets and public consciousness, Glahn told The Epoch Times. “The stories just dried up,” and reporters moved on to cover other topics.
Glahn, however, said it was obvious to him that “this was a pretty big deal … something to keep an eye on.”
Thus, for nearly four years, Glahn and a few independent journalists continued digging into what he calls “a whole portfolio of fraud.” He has documented nearly $662 million in fraud losses on the “Minnesota scandal tracker” for his employer, Center of the American Experiment, a public policy nonprofit in Minneapolis.
Yet federal prosecutors say welfare-fraud schemes have reaped billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money. Most of the defendants charged are of Somali heritage—a fact that has been taboo to report, Glahn said, even after dozens of Somalis were convicted in Minnesota welfare-fraud cases.
Fear of facing allegations of “racism” deterred whistleblowers, news outlets, and public officials who dared to raise concerns about fraud among Somalis, he said. Thus, the problem didn’t get the attention it deserved.
While hundreds or even a couple thousand Somalis may have been wrapped up in the schemes, Glahn emphasized that many Somalis are just as outraged as other taxpayers are; they have cooperated with him and with authorities to expose the fraudsters.
Thus, he said, “There is a Somali-fraud problem in Minnesota, but that doesn’t mean there is a Somali problem in Minnesota.”
Terror Allegations
In recent weeks, the schemes that had gone largely unnoticed on the national stage began to attract national attention.
City Journal—a publication of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research—produced a bombshell story that prompted President Donald Trump to cut off deportation protections for Somalis in Minnesota.
The article asserted that, when Somali fraudsters sent stolen funds back to their homeland, the Somali terror group, Al-Shabaab, had been taking a “cut,” perhaps unbeknownst to the original sender.
Glahn, a former Federal Reserve systems analyst, told The Epoch Times he believes “with 100-percent certainty” that Al-Shabaab is receiving the money, most likely despite the senders’ intentions to benefit their friends and relatives back home.
He bases that declaration on multiple factors, including his knowledge of the money-transfer process, information he gathered from Somalis, and evidence disclosed in court cases.
On Dec. 1, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that his office is investigating the fraud-for-terror allegation.
Glahn hopes that the increased scrutiny on multiple fronts will remedy welfare-system problems that have persisted for years.
The fraud cases also have political implications. Gov. Tim Walz appears to be facing headwinds over the scandals as he seeks reelection to a third term in office.
Bill Glahn, a policy fellow with Center of the American Experiment. Courtesy of Bill Glahn/Center of the American Experiment
A newly released Thinking Minnesota Poll shows that 56 percent of respondents “don’t think he’s done enough to prevent fraud in Minnesota.” And half of the respondents said “fraud will be a major factor in their vote for governor next year.” Walz has in the past denounced fraudulent use of welfare dollars, but has made no comments about the recent firestorm, other than taking jabs at Trump for his action.
Public records, along with statements from Glahn and a former fraud investigator, help show why Somali welfare-fraud snowballed in the North Star State despite early efforts to halt it.
‘A Green Light for Fraud’
After the 2022 federal raids, Glahn looked back at earlier scandals. He believes they set the stage for schemes that eventually emerged. The scope is now so overwhelming that federal prosecutors admit they lack the manpower to charge everyone involved.
Concerns over the federal Child Care Assistance Program being vulnerable to fraud date to 2009, according to a 2019 Minnesota report.
Specific concerns about Somali-run childcare programs in Minnesota exploiting those weaknesses surfaced around 2016, Glahn said.
By 2018, a Minnesota whistleblower and some media organizations were reporting that up to $100 million was being stolen via fraudulent childcare billing.
Those reports also alleged the stolen money was funding terrorist organizations in Somalia.
The Office of the Legislative Auditor was able to prove that about $6 million a year was lost to fraudulent child-care billing. The special review was unable to substantiate the terrorism-funding allegation, but cited factors that showed it was plausible.
“Federal regulatory and law enforcement agencies are concerned that terrorist organizations in certain countries, including Somalia, obtain and use money sent from the United States by immigrants and refugees to family and friends in those countries,” according to the special review.
The report also pointed out: “Federal prosecutions have convicted several individuals in Minnesota of providing material support to terrorist organizations in foreign [countries].”
People who alleged that Somalis were committing fraud were branded “racist,” Glahn said.
Perceptions spread throughout the Somali community and beyond. “They saw people getting away with it,” he said, so they thought they would try it, too.
“It seemed to be a ‘green light’ for fraud.”
“It totally emboldened people,” Glahn said, so they branched into other types of fraud.
Former Investigator Says Racism Claims a Factor
Kayseh Magan, a Somali American who formerly investigated Medicaid fraud for the Minnesota Attorney General, acknowledged in a 2024 Minnesota Reformer column an “uncomfortable” truth: Nearly all the defendants in the Feeding Our Future scandal were from the Somali community.
Feeding Our Future was a nonprofit that disbanded after authorities charged dozens of its affiliates with falsely claiming to provide meals to needy children. At least 78 people have been accused. Nearly 60 have been convicted. The stolen funds are estimated at $240 million or more.
Since then, more suspects have been charged in two more recent scandals. One case involves alleged theft of Medicaid money that was supposed to help the homeless. The other scandal centers on allegedly false claims that children with autism were receiving therapy. Instead, children were receiving fake “autism” diagnoses, and their parents were getting kickbacks for cooperating in the scheme, authorities said.
Magan explained that Somalis, fleeing civil war and famine in the 1990s, were drawn to Minnesota despite its “unforgiving winters.”
“Word spread that Minnesota is an inviting place, with generous social programs and a history of welcoming immigrants,” Magan wrote. Thus, Minnesota became home to the nation’s largest Somali community.
The group makes up only about 1 percent of the population but has been growing in political influence, partly because of the prominence of leaders such as Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn).
Minnesotans quietly wondered why so many Somalis were caught up in fraud, Magan acknowledged. His response: “My experience as a fraud investigator has taught me that fraud occurs when desire meets opportunity.”
People who are poor or out of work become desperate; professionals whose credentials aren’t recognized in the United States are stuck with “menial jobs,” he said, yet they must support their families here and in Somalia financially.
“That covers the desire, and here’s where opportunity comes into play: Minnesota’s public programs don’t adequately guard against organized fraud,” he wrote.
Fraud-catching systems “are mostly designed to root out recipient fraud,” he said.
“It is exceedingly difficult to guard against providers who collude with recipients, which is the type of fraud most pervasive in the Somali community.”
Fraudsters also took advantage of “the feckless fear that establishment politicians and state agencies show when confronted with charges of racism or Islamophobia,” he wrote in that column last year.
In his most recent op-ed, Magan said that backlash over publicity about alleged childcare fraud in 2018 gave politicians “license to ignore warnings about fraud in public programs.”
However, in that same column, Magan denounced the City Journal report, saying it “appears to be little more than an effort by the right-wing propaganda machine to whip up hatred against Somali Americans.”
He also expressed skepticism over the article’s claim about ill-gotten gains ending up in Al-Shabaab’s coffers.
The Epoch Times sought comment from Christopher Rufo, a co-author of the City Journal article, but received no reply prior to publication time.
However, in a Nov. 25 City Journal article entitled “It’s Not ‘Racist’ to Notice Somali Fraud,” Rufo pushed back against attacks on the expose.
“Progressives have suggested that our reporting and the subsequent policy change were ‘racist,’” Rufo wrote. “While many of those indicted in these schemes are Somali, these critics argue, the federal government should not hold Minnesota’s Somali community corporately responsible for the actions of individuals.
“The truth is that numerous members of a relatively small community participated in a scheme that stole billions in funds,” Rufo wrote, saying this raises implications for American immigration policy, which “has favorably treated Somalis relative to other groups” for more than 30 years. He said cultural differences might help explain reasons for the extent of the Somali fraud networks.
“It is more than fair to ask whether that policy has served the national interest,” Rufo said. “The fraud story suggests that the answer is ‘no.’”
