A series of multimillion-dollar alleged fraud schemes in Minnesota has drawn the Trump administration’s attention in recent weeks, vaulting an issue that has brewed in state politics for years into the national conversation.
President Trump has attacked Democratic Gov. Tim Walz over the fraud cases, calling Minnesota a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” and lashing out against the state’s Somali community. And Walz is facing an investigation by U.S. House Republicans.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have continued to bring new charges against alleged fraudsters in the midwestern state in recent months. And this week, the U.S. Treasury said it will investigate whether tax dollars from Minnesota’s public assistance programs made their way to al Shabaab, an affiliate of al Qaeda and a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization based in Somalia, bringing the fraud cases back into the spotlight.
Here’s what to know about the cases:
What was the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme?
Three years ago, federal prosecutors in Minnesota filed the first charges in what they described as the “largest pandemic fraud in the United States.”
The $250 million scheme — which now includes upward of 75 defendants — revolved around a nonprofit group called Feeding Our Future that partnered with the Minnesota Department of Education and U.S. Department of Agriculture to distribute meals to children.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, prosecutors say, Feeding Our Future and its affiliated food distribution sites submitted fake meal count sheets and invoices to trick state and federal officials into thinking they had helped serve food to thousands of children. The group allegedly raked in millions in administrative fees for the fake meal distributions, and got kickbacks from people who ran their distribution sites, according to federal charging documents.
Feeding Our Future’s founder, Aimee Bock, was convicted at trial earlier this year. Several other defendants, including distribution site operators, have pleaded guilty or been convicted, in some cases receiving multiyear prison sentences and being ordered to pay millions in restitution. One defendant also pleaded guilty to attempting to bribe a juror, after a member of the jury in his fraud trial found a bag with $120,000 in cash at her home.
Bock has long denied wrongdoing. At various points before charges were filed, Minnesota officials questioned some of the group’s filings and slowed approvals of distribution sites, leading Feeding Our Future to file a lawsuit accusing the state of discrimination.
The case was part of a trend of large-scale fraud across the U.S. during the pandemic, as the federal government poured money into assistance programs at a rapid clip. One former federal watchdog estimated to “60 Minutes” earlier this year that COVID-19 fraud may have cost taxpayers some $1 trillion.
Prosecutors said the program that was allegedly co-opted by Feeding Our Future — the Federal Child Nutrition Program — became more vulnerable to fraud during the pandemic. Oversight was more difficult because of the health crisis, and federal officials waived some of the program’s rules to let restaurants participate and allow off-site meal distribution.
State officials have also faced scrutiny. A probe last year by the state’s Office of the Legislative Auditor found the Minnesota Department of Education “created opportunities for fraud” by failing to act on warning signs with Feeding Our Future or investigate complaints about the group.
What other fraud allegations have circulated in Minnesota?
The Feeding Our Future scheme isn’t the only fraud case to rattle Minnesota politics.
In August, state officials shut down a fairly new program designed to help seniors and people with disabilities find housing after discovering “large-scale fraud.”
A month later, federal prosecutors charged eight people with allegedly defrauding the program, which was run through the state’s Medicaid service, by enrolling as providers and submitting millions in “fake and inflated bills.”
Prosecutors said the housing stabilization program was susceptible to fraud because it intentionally had “low barriers to entry” and few recordkeeping requirements. They also noted that spending on the program had ballooned to more than $100 million last year, despite initial estimates that it would cost around $2.6 million a year.
And in late September, a person was charged with defrauding a third state program — in this case, one that provides services to children with autism. Her company was accused of hiring unqualified “behavioral technicians” and submitting false claims to the state that indicated the staff had worked with children enrolled in the program.
She also allegedly paid kickbacks to parents who agreed to enroll their children in the program, in some cases sending them as much as $1,500, prosecutors said.
The same person, Asha Farhan Hassan, was also charged in September with running a fraudulent food distribution site as part of the Feeding Our Future scheme.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson said the case “is not an isolated scheme.”
“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,” the federal prosecutor wrote in a statement.
Kelly Loeffler, who leads the U.S. Small Business Administration, also alleged Tuesday that some of the groups linked to the Feeding Our Future scheme received COVID-era emergency loans. She said she has ordered an “investigation into the network of Somali organizations and executives implicated in these schemes.” She did not provide details on the probe.
What is the connection to Minnesota’s Somali community?
Most of the people charged in the Feeding Our Future case are of Somali descent, though Bock, the group’s founder and the scheme’s alleged “mastermind,” is White.
Prosecutors in the alleged autism services fraud scheme said the defendant “approached parents in the Somali community to recruit their children.”
The named fraud defendants appear to represent a small percentage of Minnesota’s Somali American community, which is among the largest in the nation.
Some 76,000 people of Somali descent live in the state, more than half of whom were born in the U.S., according to Census Bureau figures from last year. The vast majority of the state’s foreign-born Somali population has U.S. citizenship, and most entered the U.S. before 2010.
Around 65% of Somali people in Minnesota ages 16 and over were employed as of last year, according to the Census Bureau, roughly equivalent to the state population as a whole.
Last year, a Somali American former investigator in the Minnesota attorney general’s office, Kayseh Magan, wrote about what he called an “uncomfortable and true” reality that many people who have been charged with fraud in the state are of Somali descent.
He wrote that “fraud occurs when desire meets opportunity,” noting that many Somali Americans are “poor, desperate and seek shortcuts,” and their families in the impoverished East African country frequently rely on money from their U.S.-based relatives. He said Somali service providers often leverage trust within the community to recruit friends and relatives into their programs. Many victims of these fraud schemes are Somali, too, he added.
Has Minnesota taxpayer money made its way to the terror group al Shabaab?
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this week that his department will investigate whether tax dollars from Minnesota’s public assistance programs made their way to al Shabaab, an affiliate of al Qaeda and a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization based in Somalia.
Bessent appeared to be responding to a report in the conservative magazine City Journal that alleged millions from state programs “ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab,” citing law enforcement sources.
Those allegations have circulated for years. A 2019 report by the state’s Office of the Legislative Auditor said it was “unable to substantiate” allegations that Child Care Assistance Program funding is going to terrorist groups, though the report didn’t rule it out, saying it’s “possible” that state funds may have been sent overseas and eventually found its way to terrorists.
Multiple federal investigators told CBS News Minnesota’s Jonah Kaplan that there is no evidence taxpayer dollars were funneled to al Shabaab.
Andy Lugar, a Biden- and Obama-era U.S. attorney for Minnesota, told The Minnesota Star Tribune last month that those charged in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme “were looking to get rich, not fund overseas terrorism.”
What has President Trump said?
Mr. Trump has blamed the fraud schemes on Somali people, whom he has attacked in often incendiary terms in recent weeks. On Tuesday, the president called immigrants from Somalia “garbage,” and claimed they “destroyed Minnesota” and “contribute nothing.”
Last month, the president announced he would end temporary deportation protections for Somali immigrants who live in Minnesota, claiming without evidence that “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State,” and that Minnesota has become a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”
Somalia is also one of 19 countries that have faced near-total travel bans and a halt to immigration applications. And Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations are underway this week in the Minneapolis area, CBS News has reported.
A particular focus of Mr. Trump’s ire is Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who was born in Somalia and came to the U.S. as a teenager. He has also lashed out at Walz, whom he referred to last week using a slur for people with intellectual disabilities.
Minnesota lawmakers and members of the state’s Somali community have castigated Mr. Trump for the comments. In an interview with “Meet The Press” last weekend, Walz said the fraud issue “is totally disconnected with demonizing an entire group of people who came here, fleeing civil war, and created a vibrant community that makes Minnesota and this country better.”
What has Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said about the fraud schemes?
Walz, who has served as Minnesota’s governor since 2019, told NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday that his state has sought to crack down on fraud. He also pointed to the state’s generosity.
“Minnesota is a generous state. Minnesota is a prosperous state, a well-run state. We’re AAA-bond rated,” said the governor and 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee. “But that attracts criminals. Those people are going to jail. We’re doing everything we can.”
Asked this week about the U.S. Treasury’s investigation into claims that tax money may have gone to al Shabaab, Walz said the state welcomes federal help and wants to crack down on fraud, but added: “I don’t think anybody in here really believes their motive and their timing,” referring to the Trump administration and congressional Republicans.
Meanwhile, the governor and his administration have faced years of local scrutiny over their handling of fraud, dating back to the Feeding Our Future scheme’s emergence in 2022. Republican officials have long argued the state failed to carry out due diligence and was slow to act in that scheme — though Walz has insisted the state caught the fraud early but was stymied by court battles and asked by the FBI not to cut off payments during its investigation.
That scrutiny has resurged in recent weeks. Earlier Wednesday, Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, opened an investigation into fraud in Minnesota’s public assistance programs.
“The Committee has serious concerns about how you as the Governor, and the Democrat-controlled administration, allowed millions of dollars to be stolen,” Comer said in a letter requesting documents from Walz. “The Committee also has concerns that you and your administration were fully aware of this fraud and chose not to act for fear of political retaliation.”
