A lawyer and whistleblower says mass welfare fraud committed by Somalis in the U.S. extends to her home state of Ohio, citing discussions with anonymous providers, Fox News reported Friday.
Attorney Mehek Cooke has heard from Medicaid providers among Ohio’s Somali population that they were pressured into participating in a fraud operation involving funds for fake medical conditions, she told Fox News. The allegations come after federal investigators revealed more than $1 billion in stolen taxpayer funds in Minnesota overwhelmingly tied to its large Somali population, putting the issue in the national spotlight.
Scammers are taking advantage of an Ohio Medicaid policy that allows one to receive thousands of dollars to ostensibly provide medical care to a family member, with doctors cashing on their own funds in return for approving the payments, Cooke said.
“They’re just rubberstamping a lot of these,” Cooke told Fox News. “And then that same individual, a week later, that’s supposed to be bedridden, is all over social media, whether they’re out dancing at a party or something like that. So, the symptoms aren’t really adding up at the end of the day.”
“Say I want to take care of my elderly aging parents at some point,” she said. “I can become a home health provider, and this is where the Somali community has been really clever. They’ve been able to find loopholes in Ohio law to provide for care for family members, even when they don’t need it.”
After the Department of Justice (DOJ) brought charges against alleged fraudsters in Minnesota, another whistleblower, Christopher Bernardini, alleged that his Somali-owned health services contractor in Maine falsified records to benefit from Medicaid.
Cooke likewise said that the Somali-linked fraud revealed publicly in Minnesota is only the “tip of the spear,” according to Fox News.
“What we’re seeing in Minneapolis is just a snippet of what’s happening in Ohio,” she said.
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