General Discussion

https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/07/17/a-somali-american-investigator-heres-why-youre-hearing-so-much-about-fraud-in-my-community/

The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, where I previously worked as a fraud investigator, announced last year its largest ever Medicaid fraud case, charging 18 people with stealing $9.5 million. Not long after, the AG charged three people with stealing nearly $11 million, again in Medicaid funds. In May, eight were charged with defrauding Medicaid of $2.6 million. Last month, the AG charged five people with stealing more than $10 million. These cases — all charged in the past year — carry a combined dollar amount greater than the sum of all 261 criminal convictions for Medicaid fraud secured by the attorney general since October 2018.

You may not have read or seen much about these cases, but you’ve surely heard about the five people found guilty last month of multiple charges in the first trial in what has become known as the Feeding Our Future fraud. In total, 70 people have been charged in the scheme to bilk the federal government of more than $250 million meant to feed hungry children during the pandemic. The Reformer reported that almost half the defendants who were charged in the federal meals program had other businesses that received funds from the state.

We must grapple with something that is uncomfortable and true: Nearly all of the defendants in the cases I’ve listed are from my community. The Somali community. We began arriving in the U.S. to escape civil war and famine in the early 1990s. Minnesota, with its unforgiving winters, became an unlikely magnet for many of my people. But word spread that Minnesota is an inviting place, with generous social programs and a history of welcoming immigrants. Minnesota is now home to the largest Somali population in the United States. The vast majority of us are working people, joining the throngs of immigrants who have come before us from all over the globe, in search of freedom and opportunity.

Somalis set up a plethora of businesses and nonprofits to meet the needs of our community. Many of these businesses and nonprofits rely on taxpayer-funded programs that provide services to low-income Minnesotans. My fellow Minnesotans have wondered — almost always privately — why so many fraud stories have centered on the Somali community. My experience as a fraud investigator has taught me that fraud occurs when desire meets opportunity.

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