DOJ: 15 in Minnesota Charged With Allegedly Running Fraud Schemes Targeting $90 Million
“This is not the end of our work in Minnesota. This is not the end of the beginning of our work in Minnesota. This is the beginning of our work in Minnesota. The fraud here in Minnesota is shocking.”
The Department of Justice has charged 15 people in Minnesota with allegedly running fraud schemes that targeted more than $90 million in taxpayer money.
Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, said:
Today we are announcing criminal charges against 15 defendants in Minnesota for fraud schemes that targeted over 90 million in taxpayer dollars.
Let me be clear up front about something. This is not the end of our work in Minnesota. This is not the end of the beginning of our work in Minnesota. This is the beginning of our work in Minnesota. The fraud here in Minnesota is shocking.
Our cases today involve seven different state managed Medicaid programs that have been systematically pilfered by fraudsters who treated Minnesota-run programs as their personal piggy bank.
One of the programs has been completely shut down because there’s no money left. It’s all gone. That was Minnesota state-run housing stabilization services program designed to help the homeless find and maintain housing. It was estimated in 2020 that it would cost only about $2.5 million a year to fund this program, but it ended up costing almost 50 times that much, over $104 million by 2024 due to fraud. And because of all the fraud, Minnesota had to shut the program down in 2025 and now these services no longer exist for these vulnerable homeless populations.
The same trends exist for other Minnesota-run taxpayer-funded programs. An autism program that cost the taxpayer $600,000 just six years ago skyrocketed to over $400 million. And to be sure that number is not driven by supply and demand, it is not driven by health care or charity, it is fraud.
Assistant AG Colin McDonald: "Today, we are announcing criminal charges against 15 defendants in Minnesota for fraud schemes that targeted over $90 million in taxpayer dollars… This is the beginning of our work in Minnesota. The fraud here in Minnesota is shocking." pic.twitter.com/5YAj8jz8D0
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 21, 2026
The charges include people at two autism clinics:
Prosecutors allege defendants Shamso Ahmed Hassan and Hanaan Mursal Yusuf fraudulently billed Medicaid more than $46 million for autism services that were either medically unnecessary or never provided.
According to officials speaking from a press conference Thursday afternoon, the defendants allegedly paid parents between $300 and $1,500 per child to enroll their children in autism treatment programs before billing Medicaid for services using providers who either never worked at the clinics or were no longer employed there.
The DOJ said the clinics ultimately received roughly $21 million in Medicaid reimbursements. Prosecutors allege that some of the proceeds were used to purchase luxury vehicles, Rolex watches, jewelry, and real estate, and to transfer funds overseas to Kenya.
.@SecKennedy: "Investigators uncovered brazen schemes that billed taxpayers for nonexistent services, fraudulent diagnoses, and fake care, while criminals enriched themselves at public expense… When criminals exploit these programs, taxpayers lose billions and vulnerable… https://t.co/OrXiCm0p0q pic.twitter.com/y9vr0shgzp
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 21, 2026
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described it as “the largest autism bust in American history.”
The DOJ accused those clinics of submitting Medicaid claims for therapists who did not work at the clinics.
The owner of Ultimate Home Health faces charges for allegedly submitting “$1.4 million in false charges to a Medicaid program meant to help adults with brain injuries live independently.”
The announcement comes as Aimee Bock, leader of the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, was convicted in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota and sentenced to over 41 years in prison.
Bock faced these charges in 2022, years before Nick Shirley exposed the numerous fraud schemes in Minnesota.
The government accused Bock of a fraud scheme netting over $240 million, targeting “two programs meant to feed hungry children, which were funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture but administered by the state of Minnesota.”
“We are all up here because we love these programs,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator. “Medicaid is the fundamental payer of last resort for our most needy, most vulnerable citizens, and when we’re unable to keep these programs alive because of fraudsters, it hurts all of us deeply — and that’s what happened here in Minnesota.”
.@DrOzCMS: "We are all up here because we love these programs. Medicaid is the fundamental payer of last resort for our most needy, most vulnerable citizens, and when we're unable to keep these programs alive because of fraudsters, it hurts all of us deeply — and that's what… https://t.co/OrXiClZRaS pic.twitter.com/4ghB9a15jy
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 21, 2026
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
BUT THE GUVMENT IS RAYCISS!!!
Get prepared. You know it’s coming.
.
maaaaagggggaaaaaaa
Our government stupidly hands out free money, and then they are shocked that grifters show up and take it. This graft was completely predictable.
The root cause of the theft is the existence of un-Constitutional programs.
Not a surprise when you stop the private charities from doing the work the government shouldn’t.
Have you read Marvin Olasky’s “The Tragedy of American Compassion”? It explores how Gov’t displaced private, religious based charities and the outcomes were predictably worse.
Originally published in the late ‘80s, (maybe early 90s), I’ve heard that it shaped some of Bill Clinton’s welfare-work-requirement policies, though I can’t confirm that. Definitely worth reading.
Our technological culture which scatters our offspring to the four winds has destroyed the extended family and contributed to the government takeover of “charity”.
I’d argue the disposable culture that preceded it and endures today was the prime.driver. Widespread govt assistance for single mothers made Husbands/Fathers redundant. No husband? No problem, Uncle Sugar will provide. That’s ridiculous. If we’re gonna demand child support why not instead demand ‘shotgun weddings’? If we merely restricted support to MARRIED, intact Family units we’d get far better outcomes over time. The number of unwed getting pregnant to qualify for Sec.8, EBT, WIC, Medicaid and so on would drop off the cliff after word hit the street that they were SOL and didn’t qualify with CPS seizing the child from the unfit Parent and putting the Mother and the Father (once DNA determined who that was) on child support.
The disposable culture was buttressed by a combination of implementing no fault divorce without a corresponding modernization of the presumptions/policies/practices of our Family CT system. While no one should be forced to remain in a marriage, society shouldn’t create positive incentives for divorce in circumstances of ‘no fault’. IOW under ‘no fault’ the presumption I should be zero alimony and b/c we’re also starting off at a presumption of 50/50 legal AND physical custody zero child support. Either name and shame in divorce filing for one of the traditional reasons for divorce to qualify for (limited) alimony and potentially child support or file it no fault and get zip/nada or maybe reevaluate whether you want to be the ‘home wrecker’ of your own marriage and decide to stay.
Kick them all out! They were raised on a different moral code that is not compatible with our society. GTFO!
The honor system used to work at least somewhat.
“This is not the end of our work in Minnesota. This is not the end of the beginning of our work in Minnesota. This is the beginning of our work in Minnesota.”
No, the beginning of your work in Minnesota doesn’t start until these people are actually in prison.
In other good news, Aimee Bock got 41 years.
Leave a Comment