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

Prosecutors say members of the Somali diaspora, a group with growing political power, were largely responsible. President Trump has drawn national attention to the scandal amid his crackdown on immigration

By Ernesto Londoño
Reporting from Minneapolis
Published Nov. 29, 2025
Updated Nov. 30, 2025

The fraud scandal that rattled Minnesota was staggering in its scale and brazenness. Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program meant to keep children fed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

At first, many in the state saw the case as a one-off abuse during a health emergency. But as new schemes targeting the state’s generous safety net programs came to light, state and federal officials began to grapple with a jarring reality.

Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.

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

Outrage has swelled among Minnesotans, and fraud has turned into a potent political issue in a competitive campaign season. Gov. Tim Walz and fellow Democrats are being asked to explain how so much money was stolen on their watch, providing Republicans, who hope to take back the governor’s office in 2026, with a powerful line of attack.

In recent days, President Trump has weighed in, calling Minnesota “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” and saying that Somali perpetrators should be sent “back to where they came from.”

Many Somali Americans in Minnesota say the fraud has damaged the reputation of their entire community, around 80,000 people, at a moment when their political and economic standing was on the rise.

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..............

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Minneapolis judge sparks fury by overturning $7.2m fraud
conviction, as Somalis scam Minnesota out of $1 BILLION
Daily Mail UK ^ | December 1, 2025 | Emma Richter
Posted on 12/2/2025, 1:45:15 AM by Morgana

A judge in Minneapolis has sparked rage after she decided to overturn a taxpayer fraud conviction that saw a husband and wife go down for robbing $7.2 million from people.

Abdifatah Yusuf, 44, was found guilty of robbing innocent taxpayers through a home healthcare care company called Promise Health in August.

A jury found that he and his wife, Lul Ahmed, ran a deceitful Medicaid fraud scheme out of a mailbox at the so-called medical company and used the money for ‘lavish’ shopping sprees, including trips to name brand and designer stores like Coach, Canada Goose, Nike, Michael Kors, and to purchase high end cars, according to prosecutors.

But in a shocking twist of events, and months after Yusuf was found responsible for directing the massive scam, Judge Sarah West decided last week that the jury was all wrong and he should be let off the hook.

She defended her choice by stating that the case ‘relied heavily on circumstantial evidence’ and that the state of Minnesota did not rule out other potential ‘reasonable inferences.’

Her decision to overturn the case, which is extremely rare especially in criminal cases, has ignited a fire storm not just for the general public but for the jurors who sealed his fate.

‘I am shocked. I’m shocked based off of all of the evidence that was presented to us and the obvious guilt that we saw based off of the said evidence,’ jury foreperson Ben Walfoort told KARE 11 News.

‘It was not a difficult decision whatsoever. The deliberation took probably four hours at most. Based off of the state’s evidence that was presented, it was beyond a reasonable doubt,’ he added.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...