Somali-run Minnesota non-profit funneled taxpayer funds for autistic kids to Islamic terror group

The beginnings of the scheme were uncovered in 2019 after it was revealed that non-profit Feeding Our Future was claiming to provide meals for the poor but was absconding with money to buy luxury items. 56 people have already been indicted.

Fraud schemes have been found in housing programs, Medicare and Medicaid, rehabilitation and disability programs, food aid services, and children's autism programs. Most of those who perpetrated the fraud are Somalian.

One counterterrorism source that spoke to journalist Christopher Rufo about the fraud taking place in the state said, "The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer." Al-Shabaab is a terrorist organization in Somalia, and the report alleges that millions of dollars in funds have been taken from Minnesota taxpayers under the guise of charity and send back to Somalia via remittances where it lands in the hands of terrorists.

A member of the Somali community, Asha Farhan Hassan, charged in the Feeding our Futures case, was involved in a fraud scheme to obtain $14 million by taking advantage of Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program.

Hassan and co-conspirators “approached parents in the Somali community” to have parents enroll their children in autism services, even if the child did not have autism. Hassan would simply fabricate case of autism, according to the indictment in the case.

Christopher Rufo states in City Journal that "the number of autism providers in the state spiked from 41 to 328 over the same period, with many in the Somali community establishing their own autism treatment centers, citing the need for 'culturally appropriate programming.' By the time the fraud scheme was exposed, one in 16 Somali four-year-olds in the state had reportedly been diagnosed with autism—a rate more than triple the state average."

The report points to Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) program as a source where some of the fraud has been taking place. The program was designed with the intention to help seniors, those with mental health conditions, addicts and others secure stable housing with "low barriers to entry."

The program, only estimated to incur costs of $2,6 million, quickly spiraled out of control to over $21 million in claims in 2021. Those costs shot up to $42 million the next year, then $74 million, then $104 million the year after. In the first half of 2025, $61 in funds were paid out to claims on the program. Joe Thompson, who was the Acting US Attorney for the District of Minnesota, said earlier this year that the "vast majority" of HSS program claims have been fraudulent.

Along with the allegations of fraud, the attorney announced an indictment charging several for HSS fraud, including 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. Most of those are members of the Somali community in Minnesota.

"Most of these cases, unlike a lot of Medicare fraud and Medicaid fraud cases nationally, aren’t just overbilling,” Thompson said. “These are often just purely fictitious companies solely created to defraud the system, and that’s unique in the extent to which we have that here in Minnesota."

He later added that the fraud consisted of "schemes stacked upon schemes, draining resources meant for those in need. It feels never ending. I have spent my career as a fraud prosecutor and the depth of the fraud in Minnesota takes my breath away.”

In addition to the fraud schemes in HSS, September this year saw the 56th defendant in the Feeding Our Future fraud case out of Minnesota, Abdullahe Nur Jesow, pleaded guilty in the scheme. The organization, meant to be feeding those in need, was taking millions in federal funds for lavish lifestyles and the purchase of luxury vehicles.

The fraud rings, City Journal reports, have been sending huge sums of money from Minnesota to Somalia, and some of that has ended up in the hands of the Al-Shabaab terrorist group. The transfers went through a network of "hawalas," or informal money handlers based on clans in the country.

A retired Seattle Police Department detective that spent 14 years on the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, Somalis had a sophisticated network from Seattle to Minnesota. He saw millions exchange hands through the network of "hawalas," with many transferring massive cash reserves from Seattle to Somalia. “The amount of money was staggering,” he said. He later found his investigation in Minnesota, which he worked on for five years.

“We had sources going into the hawalas to send money. I went down to [Minnesota] and pulled all of their records and, well sh*t, all these Somalis sending out money are on DHS benefits. How does that make sense? We had good sources tell us: this is welfare fraud," Kerns said.

Another official that worked on 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. For every dollar that is transferred from the Twin Cities back to Somalia, Al-Shabaab is ... taking a cut of it.”