Minnesota Tax Dollars Fuel Terror: Politicians Silent As Billions Disappear

Paul Riverbank, 11/21/2025Medicaid fraud in Minnesota fuels overseas terrorism, exposing political silence and systemic oversight failures.

No one’s sure exactly when the floodgates opened, but in the past five years, the numbers tell a story official press releases scrambled to explain. Minnesota’s Medicaid autism spending shot from $3 million to nearly $400 million. Clinics seemed to rise overnight on corners and strip malls, offering services for kids—on paper, at least. By early this year, the state’s registry listed 328 providers. Four years prior, there were just 41.

Take Asha Farhan Hassan. Federal prosecutors allege she billed the state for $14 million in supposed autism work. Her clinics joined a rapid proliferation, all chasing the same public funds. “For every dollar that is transferred from the Twin Cities back to Somalia, Al-Shabaab is… taking a cut of it,” a former member of the Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force admitted under his breath, the kind of comment that leaves silence in its wake.

There are explanations. Kickbacks floated freely: $1,500 per child wasn’t unheard of for families willing to play along. Diagnoses arrived by text message. Some parents shrugged: “What else are we supposed to do?”

As the system strained, other scandals erupted. The Feeding Our Future saga ended up in the headlines for months—the $300 million meant for pandemic-related hunger aid simply evaporated. Fifty-six convictions and counting, federal prosecutors announced in May, though most of the money vanished into networks designed to erase the trail.

But it’s not just domestic fraud at issue. The cash doesn’t stay put. On any given day, lines snake out of money-wiring storefronts in Cedar-Riverside or along Lake Street. Most send remittances to loved ones in Somalia. Quietly, as bills change hands, hawalas—informal money couriers—take their cut. Before cash is in any family member’s hands back home, a percentage has landed with men whose names have appeared in U.N. terrorism reports for over a decade.

If you listen to what law enforcement whispers, you’ll find a measured kind of resignation. Glenn Kerns, a detective long retired from Seattle, once tracked $20 million raised and sent from his city to Africa—largely remitted by Somali-Americans whose tax returns still showed DHS benefits. “We had good sources tell us: this is welfare fraud,” Kerns asserted, almost offhand. Minnesota’s figures? At least as high, most admit.

The implications are jarring. “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer,” one federal investigator declared, the sort of statement no politician dares repeat in public. Why? Because political calculations run deep in a state where the Somali immigrant community forms a sizable and sometimes decisive voting bloc. Former State Senator David Gaither, now a private citizen, put it more bluntly: “If you don’t win the Somali community, you can’t win Minneapolis. And if you don’t win Minneapolis, you can’t win the state. End of story.”

It’s an uncomfortable truth for many. Kayesh Magan, who worked federal fraud cases, doesn’t sugarcoat it: “Most defendants in these cases are from the Somali community. That’s what the data says.” He sighs, pauses. “People look away for lots of reasons.”

There are warnings behind every investigation. U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson describes “schemes stacked upon other schemes,” each indictment uncovering yet another layer: clinics with fake rosters, daycare centers with invisible children, charities that buy nothing but themselves new office chairs. “Weak oversight, generous benefits, and money channels you can’t trace—fraudsters find new ways,” he said.

Meanwhile, the average taxpayer’s patience thins. Some don’t realize what’s been lost until local governments cut something tangible—a clinic, a bus line, a playground. At the federal level, counterterrorism experts now track stolen welfare dollars as closely as online propagandists.

For now, Minnesota’s fraud headaches neither begin nor end with any single scandal. What remains is a trail—from North Minneapolis offices to warlords’ enclaves in Africa—woven into the daily calculations of bureaucrats, lawmakers, whole neighborhoods. “If even a single dollar from these programs turns up funding violence,” one investigator said, “then the optics of the entire system change in a heartbeat.”

Trust in the system, once chipped, isn’t easily rebuilt. And each headline—one more arrest, one more conviction—traces another crack.

Just off a suburban avenue in the Twin Cities, someone’s mailbox whispers what state auditors missed. Stacks of Medicaid checks and forms, bills for autism therapies that never happened, promises signed in the scrawl of parents desperate to feed their kids or pay their rent. It all looked legitimate—until it didn’t.No one’s sure exactly when the floodgates opened, but in the past five years, the numbers tell a story official press releases scrambled to explain. Minnesota’s Medicaid autism spending shot from $3 million to nearly $400 million. Clinics seemed to rise overnight on corners and strip malls, offering services for kids—on paper, at least. By early this year, the state’s registry listed 328 providers. Four years prior, there were just 41.Take Asha Farhan Hassan. Federal prosecutors allege she billed the state for $14 million in supposed autism work. Her clinics joined a rapid proliferation, all chasing the same public funds. “For every dollar that is transferred from the Twin Cities back to Somalia, Al-Shabaab is… taking a cut of it,” a former member of the Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force admitted under his breath, the kind of comment that leaves silence in its wake.There are explanations. Kickbacks floated freely: $1,500 per child wasn’t unheard of for families willing to play along. Diagnoses arrived by text message. Some parents shrugged: “What else are we supposed to do?”As the system strained, other scandals erupted. The Feeding Our Future saga ended up in the headlines for months—the $300 million meant for pandemic-related hunger aid simply evaporated. Fifty-six convictions and counting, federal prosecutors announced in May, though most of the money vanished into networks designed to erase the trail.But it’s not just domestic fraud at issue. The cash doesn’t stay put. On any given day, lines snake out of money-wiring storefronts in Cedar-Riverside or along Lake Street. Most send remittances to loved ones in Somalia. Quietly, as bills change hands, hawalas—informal money couriers—take their cut. Before cash is in any family member’s hands back home, a percentage has landed with men whose names have appeared in U.N. terrorism reports for over a decade.If you listen to what law enforcement whispers, you’ll find a measured kind of resignation. Glenn Kerns, a detective long retired from Seattle, once tracked $20 million raised and sent from his city to Africa—largely remitted by Somali-Americans whose tax returns still showed DHS benefits. “We had good sources tell us: this is welfare fraud,” Kerns asserted, almost offhand. Minnesota’s figures? At least as high, most admit.The implications are jarring. “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer,” one federal investigator declared, the sort of statement no politician dares repeat in public. Why? Because political calculations run deep in a state where the Somali immigrant community forms a sizable and sometimes decisive voting bloc. Former State Senator David Gaither, now a private citizen, put it more bluntly: “If you don’t win the Somali community, you can’t win Minneapolis. And if you don’t win Minneapolis, you can’t win the state. End of story.”It’s an uncomfortable truth for many. Kayesh Magan, who worked federal fraud cases, doesn’t sugarcoat it: “Most defendants in these cases are from the Somali community. That’s what the data says.” He sighs, pauses. “People look away for lots of reasons.”There are warnings behind every investigation. U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson describes “schemes stacked upon other schemes,” each indictment uncovering yet another layer: clinics with fake rosters, daycare centers with invisible children, charities that buy nothing but themselves new office chairs. “Weak oversight, generous benefits, and money channels you can’t trace—fraudsters find new ways,” he said.Meanwhile, the average taxpayer’s patience thins. Some don’t realize what’s been lost until local governments cut something tangible—a clinic, a bus line, a playground. At the federal level, counterterrorism experts now track stolen welfare dollars as closely as online propagandists.For now, Minnesota’s fraud headaches neither begin nor end with any single scandal. What remains is a trail—from North Minneapolis offices to warlords’ enclaves in Africa—woven into the daily calculations of bureaucrats, lawmakers, whole neighborhoods. “If even a single dollar from these programs turns up funding violence,” one investigator said, “then the optics of the entire system change in a heartbeat.”Trust in the system, once chipped, isn’t easily rebuilt. And each headline—one more arrest, one more conviction—traces another crack.