Minnesota rewarded Somali Medicaid fraudster linked to sex trafficking operation with 'Outstanding Refugee' award

A Somali man in Minnesota has been hit with criminal charges in a case involving over $1.5 million in Medicaid fraud. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Monday that Salman Ahmed Elmi has been charged with three counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindling and five counts of aiding and abetting theft by false representation. 

Ellison’s office said that between 2024 and 2026, Elmi operated Reva Health, which claimed to provide adult rehabilitative mental health services (ARMHS) to Medicaid recipients. However, documentation was falsified to obtain Medicaid reimbursement, with Elmi and other co-conspirators being accused of instructing employees to pay recipients kickbacks in exchange for their permission to use their personal information in support of the claims. 

Several co-conspirators of Elmi at Reva Health “ran separate criminal enterprises with connections to Reva and face charges filed by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office,” Ellison’s office said. 

Those charges out of Hennepin County are against four people, with each being charged with 13 counts of promoting prostitution of an individual and receiving profits from prostitution. The defendants are 57-year-old Frank Reeves, who is accused of running the operation with former Anoka County Assistant Attorney Andrea Sampson, who is also a defendant in the case. Also charged is Viktoriya Komonash, 30, and Katherine Thomes, 36, per WCCO. 

Prosecutors say the defendants recruited women and posted sex advertisements on a website they owned, and collected money from victims they had posted online. Reeves and Komonash are accused of posting and recruiting the victims, Thomes is accused of owning and operating the website, and Sampson is accused of creating and maintaining shell companies through which to launder money.

Elmi was given the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ “Outstanding Refugee Award for Entrepreneurship” in 2021. The DHS has since taken down the website for that award. In an archived version of a profile Elmi wrote, “The biggest thing I hear all the time is that refugees are mooching off of the economy or being a non-productive member of society when, in reality, immigrants contribute to a big part of the U.S. economy, especially here in Minnesota.”