Bessent Unveils Moves to Combat Fraud in Minnesota
“Minnesota is going to be the genesis for a national rollout.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the department’s moves to crack down on government benefit fraud in Minnesota.
“Democratic Governor Tim Walz has allowed welfare programs and fraud to spiral, spiral out of control,” said Bessent. “Billions of dollars intended for hungry children, housing for disabled seniors and services for children with special needs were diverted to people who cheated the system, some of whom are not even American citizens.”
The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) will investigate at least four money services businesses. Those companies facilitate wire transfers. Bessent elaborated:
At Treasury, we are thoroughly investigating the fraud, including funds sent to Somalia through money service businesses, which provide financial services outside of a formal bank. These funds could have potentially been diverted to the terrorist organization al-Shabaab.
We have traced where the money went and are examining it. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, along with the IRS, are leading our investigation to examine whether financial institutions have complied with their legal obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act and Treasury’s regulations. These requirements are designed to detect money laundering and other illicit activity, counter the financing of terrorism and safeguard the United States financial system from abuse.
FinCEN will require those businesses to report transactions over $3,000 if the beneficiary is outside the US.
That seemed high to me. I’m glad a reporter asked Bessent if the Treasury would lower that amount.
“So we have lowered the, it’s called a geographical targeting order the GTOs, we have used lower thresholds to get at the cartels along the US Mexico border, and we view this crime as very similar to the cartels money laundering, many of the same approaches, many of the same shell companies,” explained Bessent. “So we will see where it goes out from here. That will be a starting point.”
The Treasury also issued a GTO for Hennepin and Ramsay Counties, which means banks and money transmitters in those areas must report additional information about funds sent outside of the US.
“This will put a microscope on these businesses, advance prosecutions and assist in the recovery of funds laundered internationally,” stated Bessent.
FinCEN also alerted financial institutions to ways to identify and report potential fraud, especially in federal child nutrition programs.
“Fraudsters in Minnesota stole at least 300 million meant for children in need, and we must prevent fraud of this scale from occurring in the future,” said Bessent.
Remember, one of the fraud accusations centers around “Feeding Our Future,” a program meant to feed poor children.
The IRS has also joined the investigation:
Our investigators at IRS CI have played a critical role in uncovering fraud, and the role the IRS in these investigations will continue. I am pleased to announce that IRS civil enforcement is auditing financial institutions that facilitated the laundering of Minnesota funds. In addition to helping support criminal and civil enforcement efforts, the IRS will also soon announce the formation of a task force to investigate any fraud and abuse involving pandemic era, tax incentives and misuse of 501(c3) tax exempt status by entities implicated in the Minnesota based social services fraud schemes. We are committed to preventing fraud and non fraudulent nonprofits from taking advantage of the American taxpayer.
The Treasury will help train Minnesota law enforcement to interpret financial data and spot suspicious activity.
“We will not let the incompetence and recalcitrance of Governor Walz stop law enforcement from holding these perpetrators accountable,” reassured Bessent. “President Trump is dedicated to ensuring honest Minnesotans are not cheated and their hard earned tax dollars are not being abused.”
Minnesota likely won’t be the Treasury’s only stop.
“And as I said, Minnesota is going to be the protocols, the procedures and the investigative techniques, as well as the collaboration with other agencies,” added Bessent. “Minnesota is going to be the genesis for a national rollout.”
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Wouldn’t it be just as easy to arrest the entire Walz adm and then do the investigation? Squeeze them hard enough and learn who is taking bribes to allow this fraud.
Nice to dream. If only…
‘I’m gonna call some hard, pipe hitting (censored) who’ll go to work on the homes here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch… I’m gonna get medieval on his ass’.
I hate that in our country today I have to put in the qualifier (sarc); but in a Democrat/leftist controlled polity is it a crime to defraud the taxpayer?
Subotai Bahadur
As a denizen of the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts, I believe that the official view is that it isn’t a crime since it isn’t as if you are actually stealing from anybody. State money is free money.
As a former MA resident, I agree. MN makes MA look good.
Bessent is a pit bull, he will dig these thieves a grave.
Blocking remittances from anyone on welfare seems like such a thoughtful response.
If they are on government assistance, should they be sending money out of the country?
When I heard this I boggled that we’d been allowing it until now.
The politically correct word for crime is now “lived experience.” Occasionally, you may substitute “my truth.”
The most encouraging thing to me, beyond the Treasury taking action to combat this kind of fraud, was the tone Bessent set in framing the oversight of foreign wire transfers by ‘welfare’ recipients; ‘either you are getting too much money in welfare assistance and benefits should be reduced/eliminated OR you make too much $ from other sources (legal or illegal) and the benefits should be reduced/eliminated’.
Bessent is only doing this because he’s a white supremacist racist awful nasty terrible no-good example of the heteronormative patriarchy!
/did I miss any adjectives? Guyjones?
The most egregious of all descriptors: he’s a CAPITALIST! The Horror!
In memory of a girl in my 2nd grade class… she’d have responded as follows:
(GASP!) “uhhhhmmmmmm…! I’m gonna TELL!”
That is a pretty good list considering Bessent is gay. I guess he hates himself and has been co opted by “the man” and “the system”.
Poopyhead?
I saw this show before. It was called Quincy, M.E. He also conducted autopsies.
Once they get warmed up, maybe a “field training” session out to the left coast. The number “24 billion” is being tossed about as unaccounted for in the crusade to end homelessness…. That sounds like a target-rich environment to me.
Fraudsters in Minnesota stole at least 300 million meant for children in need
I’m going to keep saying this: the real fraud is there WERE NO CHILDREN IN NEED. There never were. These funds were appropriated under false pretenses. A LOT of the charitable (and I use that term only to distinguish it from other monies) spending by our governments are LIES. This large increase in funding was intended to go in grifter’s pockets.
You mean, the 29-year-old children who have documents from Biden’s border patrol to prove it?
I am becoming certain every day that there’s little alternative except to:
1. End ALL Federal grants to NGO and ‘charities’.
2. And all contracts for service fro NGO/Charities.
3. End tax free status of all charities,. NGO, ‘non profits’ and make them file taxes, disclose where their $ comes from and be subject to IRS audit of their finances. Heck set their tax at a special 5% rate but put them into the tax system as corporations.
4. No exclusions,.no NIMBY, no arguments to tax X org but not Y org b/c Y org is ‘special, different’.
I don’t know why any of the Somali’s in MN were using wire transfers when they could just get on a plane with a million in cash stuffed in a suitcase.
The wire transfers are one of the reasons Mexico talks rhetoric against Trump but doesn’t push too hard. Wire transfers or remittances comprise roughly 5% of their GDP. If people abroad sent the US 5% of it’s GDP that would amount to roughly $1.5 Trillion of free money pumped into our economy.
NY will be next with Hoshul and Zohan permitting billions to more day care fraud.
Every Democrat program has fraud baked right in.