Minnesota’s Somali-Autism-Welfare Terrorism Funding Scheme: “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer”

Minnesota residents are footing the bill for more than just state programs—some of their tax dollars have ended up supporting Al-Shabaab, the Somalia-based terrorist organization tied to al Qaeda. A detailed report from the Manhattan Institute lays out how massive fraud in welfare initiatives funneled money overseas, where it landed in the hands of extremists.

The schemes centered on programs like Housing Stabilization Services (HSS), Feeding Our Future, and autism therapy services, all meant to help vulnerable people but instead exploited for personal gain. Investigators Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo traced the path of stolen funds from Minnesota to Somalia through informal money transfer systems known as hawalas.

Glenn Kerns, a retired detective with experience on a federal terrorism task force, described the operation: “We had sources going into the hawalas to send money. I went down to Minnesota and pulled all of their records and, well s—, all these Somalis sending out money are on DHS benefits.”

A confidential source put it bluntly: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”

Another former official from the Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force added: “Every scrap of economic activity, in the Twin Cities, in America, throughout Western Europe, anywhere Somalis are concentrated, every cent that is sent back to Somalia benefits Al-Shabaab in some way.”

The HSS program, designed to assist with housing for those in need, exploded from an initial $2.6 million estimate to over $21 million in its first year, ballooning to $61 million in claims during the first half of 2025. State officials shut it down on August 1 after terminating payments to 77 providers amid fraud allegations.

Federal indictments followed on September 18, charging eight individuals—Moktar Hassan Aden, Mustafa Dayib Ali, Khalid Ahmed Dayib, Abdifitah Mohamud Mohamed, Christopher Adesoji Falade, Emmanuel Oluwademilade Falade, Asad Ahmed Adow, and Anwar Ahmed Adow—with wire fraud. All are part of Minnesota’s Somali community, according to prosecutors. Asad Adow pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud just days ago, admitting to submitting false claims through his company, Leo Human Services LLC.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson noted at a press conference that these weren’t simple overbilling cases but involved “purely fictitious companies solely created to defraud the system.”

The Feeding Our Future scandal, one of the largest COVID-era frauds in the nation, saw the nonprofit receive nearly $200 million in 2021 alone. Perpetrators used fake meal counts and invoices to claim they served thousands of children daily, but the money bought luxury cars, properties in Kenya and Turkey, and more. On November 20, the 77th defendant, Ousman Camara, was charged with wire fraud, bribery, and money laundering for his role in the scheme.

Several involved donated to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s campaigns, and her deputy district director pushed for the group when state scrutiny arose. The organization even sued over alleged racial discrimination when applications were questioned.

Adding to the web, a separate $14 million autism services fraud emerged. Asha Farhan Hassan, also charged in Feeding Our Future, allegedly recruited Somali children for unnecessary therapy, securing fake diagnoses and paying monthly kickbacks of $300 to $1,500 per child.

Thompson connected the dots: “To be clear, this is not an isolated scheme. From Feeding Our Future to Housing Stabilization Services and now Autism Services, these massive fraud schemes form a web that has stolen billions of dollars in taxpayer money.”

State Rep. Kristin Robbins, challenging Gov. Tim Walz in the upcoming election, demanded action: “Billions of our tax dollars have been stolen under Tim Walz. We need help from Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and our partners at the U.S. Attorney’s Office to find out if our state dollars are funding terrorism.”

With remittances from the Somali diaspora exceeding Somalia’s government budget—$1.7 billion in 2023 alone—the flow of cash raises questions about oversight and whether deeper ties exist between these fraud rings and terrorist networks. Law enforcement sources suggest Al-Shabaab skims a cut from nearly every transaction entering the country, turning American welfare into a subsidy for violence.

As indictments pile up, Minnesotans deserve answers on how their hard-earned money slipped through the cracks and into dangerous hands. The full extent of this network may still be unfolding, but one thing is clear: weak safeguards have put national security at risk.

As noted by Wall Street Apes and Dennis Michael Lynch on X:

Step by step breakdown of how Somalians in Minnesota are stealing American taxpayer dollars and laundering them overseas to fund terrorism

“You’re about to get severely pissed off, all based on a report that’s out today about the Somali community in Minnesota and how it’s stealing your money. Here is how it goes.

• • Somali parents would get into this scheme of claiming that their child had autism when the child really didn’t have the autism.
  • So what would happen is that they would take their children to one of many different clinics that popped up all over the state in the last couple years, all under Governor Tim Walz.
  • They’d walk in, they would pretend like their kids had autism, they would get kickback payments anywhere between $300 to $1,500. The more you pretended your kid had autism, the more services they need, the more your kickback.
  • These parents weren’t stupid. What wound up happening was the scam was so huge that more autism centers were all starting to rack up — So what parents would say is, “Give me more money.” And if you didn’t give them more money on a kickback, they went to another center.
  • The reason why other places didn’t get involved with this is because the Somalis said they needed specific centers for them to be more delicate to the Somali needs.

Now, to put this all into size, keep in mind that the community of Somalians, they are tripling the amount of autism claims when measured through the rest of the state of Minnesota. So it’s a total scam, and this continued to grow and grow.

So much so that if you go back to 2018, autism claims were $3 million. By 2023, $400 million, and you’ve been paying for all of it. Some of that money going towards donations for the campaign of Ilhan Omar

But to make all of this worse, the money was being sent, in many cases, back over to Somalia. And that money, when it got to Somalia, was funding terrorism. That’s right.

Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda’s greatest funder are the taxpayers of Minnesota and the United States of America.

Now, Al-Shabaab has killed more Americans than anybody else. So basically, this is what it is. They’re stealing your fricking money”