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The ongoing investigations into fraud in the Somali community in Minnesota have another chilling angle: possible links to jihad.
President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy wants to move on from the days when the Middle East dominated foreign policy. But the Minnesota welfare fraud schemes are a warning sign. Closing the door on radical Islam’s ideology – and its greedy tentacles here in America – may be harder than it looks.
EXPERT REVEALS KEY FACTOR THAT LED TO MASSIVE MINNESOTA FRAUD SCHEME
Treasury Secretary Scott BessentScott Bessent was worried enough to launch an investigation into whether money was transferred from Minnesota to the infamous al-Shabaab jihadist group in Somalia.
“A lot of money has been transferred from the individuals who committed this fraud,” Bessent told Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” earlier this month. Much of that money “has gone overseas, and we are tracking that both to the Middle East and to Somalia to see what the uses of that have been,” he said.
The main motive, of course, was “pure, unmitigated greed,” as U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel said in her Aug. 6 sentencing of Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, who was convicted in a $250 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally funded child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the question is whether the sheer volume of remittances to Somalia may have directly or indirectly benefited terror networks.
TRUMP REWRITES NATIONAL SECURITY PLAYBOOK AS MASS MIGRATION OVERTAKES TERRORISM AS TOP US THREAT
Remittances are the target. Somalia’s GDP in 2024 was just $12 billion. Cash flows from the U.S. to Somalia totaled about $215 million last year. ISIS in Somalia runs a digital hawala network financing operations across Africa to fund terrorism, according to an Oct. 7 report from the Africa Defense Forum.
Americans aren’t the only ones dealing with fraud, suspicious money flows and worries about terrorist ties.
On Nov. 24, the Swedish newspaper Expressen reported that over $100 million in Swedish taxpayer kronor intended for preschools and schools in Sweden was instead siphoned off by an Islamist network running a welfare fraud scheme. It’s a network united by common family ties, criminal business and welfare crimes, according to Expressen. Swedish police also rounded up several individuals linked to radical and violent extremism at an apartment north of Stockholm. Expressen concluded that two networks engaged in pure, large-scale welfare crime for significant sums.
HOW MISREADING SOMALI POVERTY LED MINNESOTA INTO ITS LARGEST WELFARE SCANDAL
“The money disappears and does not fulfill its social purpose, while others get rich by appropriating public funds,” Gothenburg Economic Crime Authority Chief Prosecutor Henric Fagher told the Swedish news site.
Beyond the disgust at large-scale fraud, concerns remain about terrorist recruiting and radicalization. In one well-known case, 30 ISIS fighters traveled from Gothenburg to Syria in 2013. Eventually, 300 Swedes joined jihadi groups, according to The Guardian, making Sweden second only to Belgium as a recruiting source. In 2023, 24 ex-ISIS fighters were found to be working as public employees in Sweden.
Americans have reason to be concerned. A year ago, 23-year-old Abdisatar Ahmed Hassan tried twice to leave Minnesota to join ISIS in the Islamic State in Somalia. He was arrested and pleaded guilty on Sept. 29 to attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Millions of dollars of welfare fraud taking place alongside known cases of ISIS radicalization is flat-out scary. “There is no margin for error when it comes to terrorism,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said in a statement.
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Finally, the Somali fraud schemes are yet another reminder that the overall U.S. refugee and asylum policy must be re-examined. Time was when asylum policy reflected U.S. national interests, like absorbing those who fled the Soviet Union. Asylum policy went adrift after the Cold War.
As the new national security strategy says, “who a country admits into its borders — in what numbers and from where — will inevitably define the future of that nation.”
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The tragic shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., on the day before Thanksgiving should have been enough of a warning.
Admitting waves of refugees is not a sustainable policy.
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