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Minnesota taxpayer funds allegedly linked to Al-Shabaab terror group via fraud

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A new investigation has found that Minnesota taxpayer dollars moved far beyond the borders of the North Star State and ended up in the hands of Al-Shabaab, an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group.

of the Manhattan Institute uncovered a web of fraud involving Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program, Feeding Our Future and other organizations in a bombshell report. Thorpe and Rufo noted that in many cases, members of Minnesota’s Somali community were perpetrators of fraud. They added that federal counterterrorism sources confirmed that millions of dollars in stolen funds were sent back to Somalia, which is how Al-Shabaab obtained the money.

As they reviewed the plans, Thorpe and Rufo sought to answer a larger question: “Where did the money go?”

It was revealed that Somali fraud gangs were transferring money from Minnesota to Somalia, and according to reports, approximately 40% of households in Somalia transferred money from abroad. Thorpe and Rufo state that the Somali diaspora sent 1.7 billion dollars to the country in 2023, which is higher than the Somali government’s budget for the same year.

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Women walk along a tree-lined street in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, home to one of the largest Somali communities in the United States (Michael Dorgan/Fox News Digital)

Thorpe and Rufo discovered that the funds were transferred to Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organization. Multiple law enforcement sources informed the duo that Minnesota’s Somali community sent millions of dollars through a network of money traders known as “hawalas” that wound up in the hands of the terror group.

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“Every scrap of economic activity in the Twin Cities, America, Western Europe, anywhere Somalis are concentrated, every penny sent back to Somalia benefits Al-Shabaab in some way,” a former official with the Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force told Thorpe and Rufo.

The HSS program was started with the aim of helping those in need but turned into a fraud scheme. The program was initially estimated to cost $2.6 million, but paid out more than $21 million in compensation in its first year, according to Thorpe and Rufo. Costs have only increased from that point, with the program paying out $61 million in compensation in the first six months of 2025.

The Minnesota Department of Human Services terminated the program on Aug. 1 after finding that payments to 77 housing stability providers had been terminated due to “credible allegations of fraud,” Thorpe and Rufo reported.

Just over a month after the program was shut down, then-acting US Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joe Thompson announced criminal indictments for HSS fraud against Moktar Hassan Aden, Mustafa Dayib Ali, Khalid Ahmed Dayib, Abdifitah Mohamud Mohamed, Christopher Adesoji Falade, Emmanuel Oluwademilade Falade, Asad Ahmed Adow and Anwar Ahmed Adow. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office told Thorpe and Rufo that all six were members of Minnesota’s Somali community.

Soldiers' feet are seen next to the hole that is claimed to be the shelter of the terrorist organization

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Thompson said at a press conference in September that the problem goes beyond overbilling but rather involves “completely fictitious companies created solely to defraud the system.” Moreover, scammers often targeted vulnerable individuals, such as people recently released from rehab, and signed them up for services they allegedly did not plan to provide.

On September 18, the same day the HSS indictments were announced, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced the guilty plea of the 56th defendant in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme. The number of defendants has only grown, with the US Attorney’s Office announcing charges against a .

Feeding Our Future received $3.4 million in state federal funding in 2019, but with the impact of COVID-19, the organization quickly expanded its number of sponsored sites, according to Thorpe and Rufo. Rufo added that Feeding Our Future received almost $200 million in funding in 2021.

“Using fake meal counts, doctored attendance records, and fabricated invoices, the perpetrators of the fraud ring claimed to serve thousands of meals a day, seven days a week, to poor children,” Thorpe and Rufo wrote in their report. they wrote.

When authorities became suspicious of the nonprofit in 2020, Feeding Our Futures filed a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination over its outstanding site practices. According to Thorpe and Rufo, the nonprofit states in the lawsuit that it “needs” foreign nationals. He also noted that “several people” involved in the program, D-Minn. They also note that he donated to representative Ilhan Omar and that Omar’s deputy regional director defended the group.

Somali Street sign with Riverside Plaza buildings behind it in Minneapolis

A “Somalia St” street sign is pictured in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis with Riverside Plaza in the background. (Michael Dorgan/Fox News Digital)

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A few days later, Thompson announced an indictment in another fraud scheme, this time involving autism services for children.

Asha Farhan Hassan, a member of Minnesota’s Somali community who is also accused of the Feeding Our Future scam, is accused of playing a role in a $14 million scheme against Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program. According to Thorpe and Rufo, Hassan and his collaborators allegedly recruited children from the Somali community for autism therapy services. Prosecutors alleged that Hassan would facilitate fraudulent autism diagnoses in children who did not have autism.