The deeper investigators dig into Minnesota’s web of welfare fraud, the more it looks less like a case of bureaucratic mismanagement and more like a national security crisis — one fueled by taxpayer dollars and exploited by transnational networks that end in the coffers of terrorists.
According to new reporting from City Journal, authored by Christopher F. Rufo and Ryan Thorpe, the ongoing Medicaid fraud surrounding autism care programs in Minnesota is no longer just about financial theft. It’s about where that money went — and what it’s funding. The most disturbing conclusion yet? Minnesota taxpayers may be the single largest indirect funders of the terrorist group Al-Shabaab.
Let’s break it down.
Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention (EIDBI) program, designed to assist children with autism, has ballooned beyond belief. In 2018, Medicaid claims for autism services in the state totaled $3 million. By 2023, that number had exploded to $399 million. That’s a 13,200% increase in five years — a growth rate that defies reason, science, and demographics.
And the numbers of providers? Just as alarming. In 2020, there were 41 autism care providers in the state. In 2025, there are 328 — an eightfold increase, many centered around Minneapolis’ Somali community, which has now become the nexus for the fraud.
Among those charged is Asha Farhan Hassan, who prosecutors allege defrauded the state out of $14 million by enlisting Somali families and offering kickbacks of $300 to $1,500 per child in exchange for participating in the fraudulent schemes. Fake diagnoses. Fake treatment plans. Fictitious clinics. And millions in Medicaid funds flushed out of the system.
But it gets worse.
According to U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, these were not one-off scams. They are part of a systemic, stacked, and sprawling fraud machine — one that has already bled billions from Minnesota’s social programs. From the notorious Feeding Our Future case, which resulted in 70 indictments for $250 million in stolen food aid, to the Housing Stabilization Services program, which was expected to cost $2.6 million in its first year but paid out $21 million, growing to over $100 million annually in less than four years.
All of it flowing into hawalas — the informal, untraceable cash-transfer networks used across the Muslim world. In theory, they’re used to bypass Islamic restrictions on traditional banking. In practice? They’ve become a black hole for accountability, and an ideal vehicle for moving stolen welfare funds directly into the hands of terror groups like Al-Shabaab.
Former Seattle police detective Glenn Kerns confirmed the pattern, having tracked $20 million in hawala transfers in one year from Seattle alone, much of it traced back to Department of Homeland Security benefits. When he looked closer at Minnesota, the same pattern emerged.
One federal source laid it bare:
“Every cent that is sent back to Somalia benefits Al-Shabaab in some way… the largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”
And make no mistake — this is not a theoretical concern. Minnesota has long been under scrutiny for producing more ISIS recruits per capita than any other U.S. state. And now, with this massive welfare-fraud pipeline exposed, the implications are no longer just local corruption. They are international.
At the center of this scandal is Governor Tim Walz, who presided over the creation and catastrophic mismanagement of these programs. As former Vice Presidential nominee and head of one of the most progressive administrations in the country, Walz has been notably silent on how this fraud flourished under his watch.
This isn’t about ethnicity. This isn’t about targeting communities. This is about cold, hard evidence of corruption, collusion, and criminal negligence — evidence that now ties public money meant for disabled children, vulnerable families, and housing for the poor, to the financing of violent jihad abroad.
