Treasury Launches Probe into Allegations Somali Fraud Rings in Minnesota Ripped off Taxpayers and Diverted Funds to Terrorists

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Monday that his department has launched an investigation into allegations that Somali fraud rings in deep blue Minnesota have stolen billions in taxpayer funds and sent some of the spoils to Islamist terrorists back home.

The action comes after two independent media outlets published shocking investigative reports on the state’s mismanagement of welfare funds under Governor Tim Walz.

“At my direction, the Treasury Department is investigating allegations that under the feckless mismanagement of the Biden Administration and Governor Tim Walz, hardworking Minnesotans’ tax dollars may have been diverted to the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab,” Bessent posted on X.

“Thanks to the leadership of President Donald Trump, we are acting fast to ensure Americans’ taxes are not funding acts of global terror,” he added.

Bessent stated that he would share the department’s findings as its investigation into the graft continues.

Last month, City Journal and County Highways posted hair-raising stories about how Minnesota, under Governor Tim Walz, allowed Somali fraud rings to loot billions in disbursements “all on an honor system.”

Meanwhile, a recording of a December 2021 meeting between Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and key figures in the Feeding Our Future scandal emerged earlier this year.

Ellison, the state’s chief law enforcement officer, was caught on tape pledging support to a group of Somalis “who would soon become his family’s campaign donors and later Feeding Our Future criminal defendants.”

“Minnesota is drowning in fraud. Billions in taxpayer dollars have been stolen during the administration of Governor Tim Walz alone,” wrote City Journal’s Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe in their City Journal piece. “Democratic state officials, overseeing one of the most generous welfare regimes in the country, are asleep at the switch. And the media, duty-bound by progressive pieties, refuse to connect the dots.”

In many cases, the fraud has allegedly been perpetrated by members of Minnesota’s sizeable Somali community. Federal counterterrorism sources confirm that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia, where they ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab. As one confidential source put it: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”

Our investigation shows what happens when a tribal mindset meets a bleeding-heart bureaucracy, when imported clan loyalties collide with a political class too timid to offend, and when accusations of racism are cynically deployed to shield criminal behavior. The predictable result is graft, with taxpayers left to foot the bill.

During the White House briefing Monday,  Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt aptly described how the Somalis looted  Minnesota.

“Somali immigrants in Minnesota have been ripping off American taxpayers,” she said during the White House press briefing Monday. “59 [Somalis] have been convicted for their roles in fraud plots that have stolen $1 billion from taxpayers,” she continued.

Leavitt explained how the nonprofit Feeding Our Future and its affiliates with the Somali migrants claimed to have fed tens of thousands of American children during the pandemic.

“They were reimbursed for those meals by taxpayers. However, federal prosecutors found that almost all of those meals were never even delivered to hungry children,” she said. “Instead, those organization leaders spent the money on houses, luxury cars, and real estate in Turkey and Kenya.”

Leavitt pointed out that all of the graft was allowed under Democrat leadership in a Democrat state.