A new report alleges that Minnesota taxpayer money has been diverted through fraud schemes and ended up funding Al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-linked terror group, raising serious national security concerns.
According to Fox News, researchers Ryan Thorpe and Christopher F. Rufo of the Manhattan Institute uncovered extensive fraud involving Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) program, the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, and other organizations.
The report states that members of Minnesota’s Somali community were key actors in the schemes, which funneled millions of dollars back to Somalia through remittance networks known as “hawalas.” Federal counterterrorism sources reportedly confirmed the transfers benefited Al-Shabaab.
Thorpe and Rufo noted that in 2023, the Somali diaspora sent $1.7 billion in remittances to Somalia—more than the Somali government’s entire budget that year. “Where did the money go?” the researchers asked, uncovering that a portion of these funds ultimately reached the terror group.
Retired Seattle Police detective Glenn Kerns, who spent 14 years on a federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, described a complex network in which cash was transported on commercial flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to hawalas in Somalia.
“All these Somalis sending out money are on DHS benefits,” Kerns told the researchers. A confidential source told Thorpe and Rufo that “the largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”
The HSS program, originally budgeted at $2.6 million, paid out $61 million in claims in the first six months of 2025 before Minnesota’s Department of Human Services terminated payments to 77 providers over “credible allegations of fraud.”
U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson later announced multiple criminal indictments tied to the program, many involving members of Minnesota’s Somali community.
Feeding Our Future, which received nearly $200 million in federal funding by 2021, also faced indictments. Prosecutors allege perpetrators submitted fake meal counts and invoices, using the funds to purchase luxury vehicles and real estate in the U.S., Turkey, and Kenya.
Asha Farhan Hassan, among others charged, is accused of defrauding Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program, allegedly facilitating fraudulent autism diagnoses for Somali children to collect $300–$1,500 per child in monthly kickbacks.
Thompson described the cases as a sprawling web of fraud: “From Feeding Our Future to Housing Stabilization Services and now Autism Services, these massive fraud schemes form a web that has stolen billions of dollars in taxpayer money.”
State Rep. Kristin Robbins, citing the report, demanded federal involvement. “Billions of our tax dollars have been stolen under [Tim Walz]. We need help from [Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel]…to find out if our state dollars are funding terrorism,” she wrote on X.
