The FBI has deployed additional personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota to “dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs”, director Kash Patel said on social media on Sunday.
The FBI director said the agency had already dismantled a $250m fraud scheme that stole federal food aid meant for vulnerable children during the Covid pandemic in a case that led to 78 indictments and 57 convictions.
Patel said the FBI believes “this is just the tip of a very large iceberg”. Some of those involved in the alleged scheme are being “referred to immigrations officials for possible further denaturalization and deportation proceedings where eligible”.
Patel’s comments comes after federal prosecutors estimate as much as $9bn has been stolen across schemes linked to the state’s Somalia population, a figure nearly equivalent to Somalia’s entire GDP.
The FBI director also said he was aware of recent social media reports in Minnesota, which appears to refer to an online report by independent journalist Nick Shirley about a daycare center in Minneapolis that received $4m despite reportedly having no enrolled kids. The 42-minute video has been viewed 84m times since it was posted on 26 December.
Patel said the FBI had surged personnel and resources into the state before the video and attendant conversation escalated online.
The Trump administration has portrayed Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community as a locus of widespread fraud, much of it allegedly perpetrated during the Covid pandemic.
Last month, Donald Trump ended legal protections for Somalis in Minnesota and accused the state of being “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” under its Democratic governor, Tim Walz.
Somali Americans, Trump has said, “come from hell”, “contribute nothing” and should “go back to where they came from”. He has also described Minnesota’s Democratic representative Ilhan Omar as “garbage” and said “her friends are garbage.”
Omar has called Trump’s “obsession” with her and Somali Americans “creepy and unhealthy.”
“We are not, and I am not, someone to be intimidated,” Omar said earlier this month, “and we are not gonna be scapegoated.”
Omar has accused agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of pulling her constituents off the streets, including questioning her son. She has said she is being forced to address questions about her own immigration status.
In an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune published on Friday, Omar called Trump’s immigration policy “cruel” during his first administration, “and now it’s just outright dangerous and severely inhumane” and “geared towards this sort of white supremacist view of what America should be”.
And she worries that “we’re not even at the worst yet, that there is probably more to come.”
Omar has come under further pressure from the administration after it was revealed that her husband and former political consultant, Tim Mynett’s, $25m venture capital firm, Rose Lake Capital, recently purged key officer details from its website after questions were raised about the couple’s wealth.
The couple’s net worth surged 3,500% in just one year, according to reports, and their net worth is now anywhere between $6m and $30m. The venture capital firm alone, per the filing, is worth between $5m and $25m.
The firm’s officials and advisors that have been removed from Rose Lake Capital’s website include Adam Ereli, Barack Obama’s former ambassador to Bahrain; Max Baucus, Obama’s ambassador to China; Alex Hoffman, the former finance chair of the Democratic National Committee; and former DNC treasurer William Derrough.
Omar has not been accused of wrongdoing, but reports say that three people accused of defrauding the state have alleged ties to the congresswoman.
Asked about her support of the Meals Act, a bill that changed school meal reimbursement rules during the pandemic and has been connected to systems of fraud, Omar told Fox News Digital, it has not contributed to the fraud and “it did help feed kids”.
