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Message: This must be prosecuted.......Minn Somali community members connive complex schemes related to tax-paid autism services, food programs, and housing, which prosecutors estimate stole billions of tax dollars. Even worse, some of the taxpayers’ cash ended up in the hands of Al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization............ in Somalia.
Minn autism expert suspected Somali fraud a year ago
ABC 5 KSTP ^ | July 16, 2025 | Ryan Raiche KSTP
Posted on 11/26/2025, 1:24:19 PM by Morgana
The unprecedented crackdown that is underway right now to root out fraud in Minnesota’s growing autism program started around the time of a federal raid of two autism centers last year in Minneapolis and St. Cloud.mHowever, there are growing concerns that the state may have missed warning signs. “It makes me sad for the families,” said Dr. Eric Larsson with the Lovaas Institute Midwest. He’s dedicated his life to helping families with autism and even helped the state stand up its autism program a decade ago. “The only reason we’re delivering services is because families worked so hard over the past 30 years to develop this program,” he said.
But now the program is in the crosshairs of state investigators. As 5 INVESTIGATES first reported, 1 in 5 autism centers in the state is now under investigation after a new crackdown launched last fall. “There was such a high need for autism services in Minnesota when the state began offering it, that it’s an unlicensed service, so there aren’t the same structures in place that there are for other programs,” said Shireen Gandhi, Temporary Commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Human Services, the agency that oversees the program.
There are currently more than 450 providers in the state who submit claims for Medicaid reimbursement. When the program first got off the ground in 2017, claims totaled more than $1 million. But the program has exploded – last year, claims totaled more than $220 million. DHS said it stepped up enforcement late last year, around the time the feds raided two autism centers suspected of billing the state more than $20 million for services never provided. “I was never thinking somebody is going to submit fake bills,” Dr. Larsson said. (Excerpt) Read more at kstp.com ...