A Dose of Reality on the Minnesota Frauds

I don’t know why Nick Shirley’s video has gotten so much attention. For the most part the attention is welcome, but it has engendered quite a few misunderstandings. The national commentary in the wake of Shirley’s video has been almost entirely ill-informed.

Those who attack Shirley and try to undermine his video are missing the point. Whatever the merits of that video, there is absolutely zero doubt that there has been an enormous amount of fraud in Minnesota’s Somali community. Some of it relates to child care. In fact, child care fraud came to light a decade or more ago. A number of fraudsters, I believe all of them Somali, were prosecuted and went to prison. Their dodge was the same as what you appear to see in Shirley’s video: the fraudsters would submit claims for reimbursement based on large numbers of children, most or all of whom did not exist. This hasn’t just been captured on video, it has been proved in court.

In recent years, attention has focused mostly on the Feeding Our Future scandal. A federal program to feed needy children during the covid fiasco was seized on by criminals, almost all of them Somali, who submitted claims for feeding enormous numbers of children. Again, the overwhelming majority of the children were non-existent. Random name generators have become popular applications in the Somali community.

The Feeding Our Future scandal has been in the news since January 2022. For the last four years, our own Scott Johnson and American Experiment’s Bill Glahn have led the reporting on the scandal. It has been covered repeatedly, if incuriously, in the local press as well.

The Feeding Our Future scandal was investigated by the FBI and was blown open four years ago by a series of FBI raids on fraudulent sites. Prosecutions have been handled by the United States Attorney’s office in the Twin Cities, as state enforcers led by Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison have been out of the picture, I assume for political reasons.

From memory, I believe 86 people have been indicted in the FoF scandal, almost all of them Somalis. There have been two criminal trials resulting in multiple guilty verdicts, and another 50 or 60 defendants have pled guilty. There are another 20 or more defendants against whom charges are still pending, with more trials or guilty pleas to come. The total amount stolen from that one program is estimated at $500 million, although most of the fraudsters, all but the largest, will never be prosecuted due to manpower limitations in the Department of Justice and the irrelevance of Minnesota’s state authorities.

Feeding Our Future spawned investigations into more Minnesota welfare programs, and more fraud has been discovered wherever investigators have looked. For example, there was a Medicaid program that consisted of giving people advice on how they might find housing. (I always thought Medicaid had to do with health care, but not necessarily.) That program ballooned almost overnight from an initial cost of around $3 million to more than $100 million. The investigation showed that not a single dollar spent on that program was legitimate. Every cent of the $100 million-plus was criminal fraud. Again, the perpetrators were Somalis.

Tim Walz has claimed credit for shutting down that particular Medicaid program entirely, as though he was going beyond the call of duty to notice that his administration was riddled, to a laughable extent, by corruption.

Other programs have been investigated as well, and found to be replete with fraud. Autism centers and adult day care centers have been in this category. I expect that indictments will be forthcoming in these categories. Again, the perpetrators are mostly or entirely Somalis.

The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office have now broadened their investigation to include all Medicaid programs administered by the State of Minnesota. Joe Thompson is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who has led the Feeding Our Future prosecutions and the other fraud investigations. He is a most impressive guy, and is doing a tremendous job. He is the most credible figure in this entire, sad story.

Thompson recently gave a press conference in which he said that the federal investigation has uncovered vast amounts of fraud across the entire range of Medicaid programs. He said that these programs have expended $18 billion over the last several years. When asked by a reporter how much of that amount he believed was fraud, Thompson said, at least half. Scott Johnson apparently was the only reporter in the room who dared to ask an obvious question: Is the fraud that you are now seeing centered in the same community as the prior frauds? Yes, Thompson said.

So national commentators who are going back and forth over the merits of Shirley’s video are very late to the party, and apparently are unaware of what, to us, is blindingly obvious. Those who are trying to defend the Somali community in Minnesota–Shirley’s video didn’t really prove much fraud!–simply have no idea what has been going on for years, and apparently are unaware of what has already been proved in court.

It is good that people across the country have found out about the remarkable incompetence and corruption of the Tim Walz administration. Apart from that, though, the sound and the fury that we see on X is mostly irrelevant. Those on X who say, “Someone needs to go to jail!” don’t seem to understand that quite a few fraudsters are already in prison. The real action will continue to be in the federal courts, driven by Minnesota’s U.S. Attorney’s office. As in the past, your best sources of information will be Scott Johnson and Bill Glahn. News coverage will trail behind the legal process.

Unlike tweeting, the legal process is hard. Joe Thompson has described what we see in Minnesota as industrial-scale fraud. Our legal system is not built to handle it, just as our immigration system is not built to deal with 10 million-plus illegals streaming across our border. Joe has six or seven lawyers assigned to white collar crime. That is nowhere near enough. The FBI has done great work here, but I assume that they, too, need more manpower to deal with the scale of the crime with which we are confronted.

It is fine–long overdue, in fact–for Congressional committees to hold hearings on the Minnesota frauds, as though they were breaking news. But what we really need is for Pam Bondi to transfer assistant U.S. attorneys from other districts to Minnesota, to help with the prosecutions. And additional FBI resources, if they are needed. Still, when crime is committed at the scale we see in Minnesota, it will never be fully punished. Those who stole only a few hundred thousand dollars are getting away scot free.

The ultimate moral of this story relates to immigration, but that is a post for another day.

Before thieving Somalis looted daycare tax dollars, attention has focused mostly on Somali looting w/ Feeding Our Future scandal, a federal program to feed needy children during the Covid seized on by Somali criminals to enrich themselves. Somalis submitted fraudulent claims for feeding enormous numbers of non-existent kids. Random name generators were popular applications in the Somali community. Read on.

Four More Defendants Plead Guilty
to $250 Million Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme
Friday, February 7, 2025

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS – Four additional defendants have pleaded guilty for their roles in the $250 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally funded child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick.

First, according to court documents, at times between October 2020 and January 2022, Abduljabar Hussein, 44, of Shakopee, Minnesota, knowingly and willfully conspired with others to participate in a fraudulent scheme to obtain and misappropriate millions in federal child nutrition funds.

According to court documents, in October 2020, Abduljabar Hussein’s wife, Mekfira Hussein, enrolled her non-profit, Shamsia Hopes, in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future, at the direction of one of its employees, Abdikerm Eidleh. Mekfira Hussein submitted her application to Aimee Bock, Feeding Our Future’s executive director. In December 2020 and also at the direction of Abdikerm Eidleh, Abduljabar Hussein registered his company, Oromia Feeds LLC, with the State of Minnesota. Oromia Feeds LLC also participated in the Federal Child Nutrition Program as a vendor for food to be served by Shamsia Hopes sites run by his wife.

Together, the Husseins submitted fraudulent claims that sought reimbursement for far more meals and food than they actually prepared. Hussein and his wife submitted fraudulently inflated invoices for reimbursement—including inflated meal counts and false attendance rosters. As part of this scheme, Hussein and his wife paid at least $140,000 in kickbacks to Eidleh and least $12,000 in kickbacks to Aimee Bock, in exchange for Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship of Shamsia Hopes. In some instances, these kickback payments were disguised as “consulting fees,” when, in fact, neither Eidleh nor Aimee Bock provided any service to justify these payments.

According to his plea agreement entered today, the Husseins ultimately obtained up to $8.8 million in federal child nutrition program funds some of which they used to pay for personal expenditures unrelated to feeding children. For instance, the defendant used $173,438 of the proceeds to pay off the mortgage on his home in Shakopee, Minnesota, and also purchased a 2021 Porsche for $93,250, as well as a 2022 GMC truck for $61,722. As part of his sentence, Hussein was ordered to forfeit those vehicles as well as a 2021 Tesla, and the fraud money he applied toward his home mortgage.

Next, according to court documents, Zamzam Jama, 50, and Mustafa Jama, 48, of Rochester, Minnesota, and Asha Jama, 42, of Lakeville, Minnesota, each pled guilty to laundering fraudulent proceeds that were paid by Feeding Our Future through the Federal Child Nutrition Program to Brava Restaurant. In October 2020, Brava Restaurant, which was located in a retail strip mall in Rochester, Minnesota, enrolled as a distribution site in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future.

The Jamas and their conspirators coordinated the establishment of shell companies through which they received and disbursed funds from the federal child nutrition program to make expenditures that had nothing to do with feeding children. Specifically, on January 7, 2021, Salim Said, a co-owner of Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis, paid to register six different shell companies with the state of Minnesota for the Jamas and others.

In 2021, Zamzam Jama, Mustafa Jama, and Asha Jama deposited at least $491,245, $1,429,730, and $449,933, in misappropriated Federal Child Nutrition Program funds into their respective shell entities’ bank accounts. The Jamas then used those funds for various personal expenditures that had nothing to do with feeding children.

Zamzam Jama spent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds on a home in Rosemount, Minnesota, and to purchase a 2021 Toyota RAV4 vehicle. With her guilty plea, Zamzam Jama has forfeited that vehicle, her interest in the Rosemount property, as well as $114,482 from her bank accounts in 2022 by federal investigators.

Mustafa Jama used Federal Child Nutrition Program funds to buy a home in Columbus, Ohio. He also spent $394,000 in program money toward a home in Lakeville, Minnesota, and to purchase Mediterranean coastal property in Alanya, Turkey. With his guilty plea, Mustafa Jama has forfeited any interest in the Ohio and Lakeville properties, as well as $239,500 from his bank accounts in 2022 by federal investigators.

Asha Jama spent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds toward a home in Lakeville, Minnesota, and another in Rochester, Minnesota. With her guilty plea, Zamzam Jama has forfeited her interest on those two properties any interest in that vehicle, the Rosemount property, as well as $149,880 seized from her bank accounts in 2022 by federal investigators.

In separate proceedings in U.S. District Court before Judge Nancy E. Brasel, Abduljabar Hussein pleaded guilty on February 5, 2024, to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud; Zamzam Jama pleaded guilty on February 5, 2025, to one count of money laundering; Mustafa Jama pleaded guilty on February 6, 2025, to one count of money laundering; and Asha Jama pleaded guilty on February 7, 2025, to one count of money laundering. Sentencing hearings for all four defendants will be scheduled at a later date.

The case is the result of an investigation by the FBI, IRS – Criminal Investigations, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew S. Ebert, Joseph H. Thompson, Harry M. Jacobs, and Daniel W. Bobier are prosecuting the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Baune is handling the seizure and forfeiture of assets.

Updated February 7, 2025

Yes.

And we see this horseBLEEP from the Left constantly: “Oh, it is only 80-90 people out of hundreds of thousands doing this illegality...”

Every single person you saw on that video was deeply involved in the fraud. They were all sucking at that $9 Billion dollar taxpayer money teat.

Every single man and woman inside those “child care”, “autism”, or “health care” facilities was in on it.

The people congregating outside videoing them with their phones are in on it.

The police who showed up are in on it, including the police chief and the officers on the ground..

The Minnesota and Minneapolis legislatures are in on it.

The graft and corruption committed of the state is in on it, at least the Democrats are.

The governor, Lt. Governor, his staff, all are in on it.

The people like Ilhan Omar who serves at the national level is in on it, as is every single blue state member of the House of Representatives.

They know. They locked the doors, covered the windows and their faces, From top to bottom, they are all deflecting, making charges of racism, enabling the theft. Tens of thousands of them are getting a portion, large and small, of that $9 billion stolen taxpayer dollars.

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