Tag Archives: Minnesota fraud

Eliminating Fraud In Government

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On January 5th, Issues & Insights posted an article with a suggestion for ending government fraud.

The article notes:

Some are estimating that more than half of federal income tax revenues are devoured by fraud. This should not come as a shock. A massive government that funds everything from small businesses to health care to child care to housing is a rich target for thieves. Sharply reducing its size would limit the opportunities to steal from taxpayers.

Bandits have been defrauding of the U.S. government on such a colossal scale that even the legacy media has had to cover it, at least somewhat. The Minnesota Somalis looting the public fisc blew the lid so high that now smart folks are finding institutionalized fraud far, wide, high and low.

As noted in a March executive order, “the Government Accountability Office estimates that the federal government loses between $233 and $521 billion annually to fraud.” That higher number might be in reality a low-end estimate, because the money flows from Washington from a number of orifices outside the Treasury Department, and an accurate tracking is simply not possible.

We say this because in fiscal 2024, non-Treasury disbursing offices “were estimated to be responsible for 181 million payments totaling over $1.5 trillion,” says the White House, roughly 22% of the entirety of federal dollars disbursed. Combine this fact with the fraud that is being uncovered and it’s obvious we’ve reached crisis levels.

The article concludes:

The only logical solution is to limit the possibilities by thoroughly downsizing the beast, which has grown well beyond the point to which its size has nurtured and sustained the “professionalized the pathways of corruption” and “is doing many more things than can be done with tolerable honesty.”

We are realists and understand that shrinking Washington is about as easy as threading a needle with a rope.

But Donald Trump was elected to decrease the length, width, and depth of the federal government, and while his efforts after eight years will be modest at best, Americans do have the ballot box to elect presidential and congressional candidates who will continue what he started. Maybe the Minnesota scandal is a watershed moment that will anger voters enough for them to understand what they have to do.

Shrinking government was at the root of the founding of the Tea Party. Unfortunately, some of the people involved in that movement have either aged out and become complacent. It is time for everyone to get involved in putting pressure on the government to downsize and cut spending.

One Person Can Make A Difference

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The Minnesota government fraud case has been in the headlines nationally recently. Power Line Blog has been reporting the story for years, but one young journalist is partially responsible for getting the story to the public.

On December 29, Scott Johnson posted an article at Power Line Blog about the corruption.

The article reports:

Bill Glahn, Lou Raguse, and other members of the local Twin Cities press have been covering the massive public-programs fraud committed by a large cast of almost exclusively Somali perpetrators for a while now. For those just tuning in, Bill points out — to take one example — that KSTP’s Jay Kolls knocked on alleged daycare doors in this January 2025 story.

YouTuber Nick Shirley has brought the daycare story to a national audience with the video he posted last week. Bill posted the video here on Power Line. The delayed detonation of this story represents another rendition of the Rufo effect. Like Chris Rufo’s linked City Journal column, the Shirley video implies that something must be done. An investigation must be conducted. Perpetrators must be held to account. This implication does a disservice to what has been done by the federal authorities to date. I tried to add this perspective to the story in “Minnesota’s Somali fraud problem.”

Shirley has a local guide named David. David alludes to frauds centered on St. Paul’s Grigg’s-Midway Building. One wouldn’t know from the video that the FBI executed search warrants and the United States Attorney brought an initial set of charges arising from the Griggs-Midway Building. I wrote about the searches here in July (“Another massive Minnesota fraud”) and the charges here in September (“The fraud this time”). The linked September post includes a video of the press conference announcing the charges.

Shirley acknowledges a recent FBI raid on an Eagan or Minneapolis office building at about 26:10 of the video. You can see the FBI at work lugging boxes of evidence removed from the building. Shirley also checks out the Griggs-Midway Building itself at 29:20 of the video.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Now that the reporting of the fraud has gone national, those responsible need to be held to account. I think all of us are tired of hearing about massive government fraud, and then the story goes away. I am looking for orange jumpsuits!

Wasn’t Anyone Paying Attention?

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On Friday, American Greatness posted an article related to the Somali fraud in Minnesota.

The article reports:

A TSA whistleblower has come forward to say she routinely witnessed Somalian immigrants flying out of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport carrying suitcases stuffed with millions of dollars of cash and fake passports.

“It seemed so lackadaisical that these people could get through the airport with all that cash,” the former TSA agent told Alpha News reporter Liz Collin, this week. “Time after time after time. It wasn’t a one time thing.”

She said “it was frustrating to see it when I was a TSA agent and it’s certainly frustrating now watching this state’s administration.”

During a press conference in St. Paul, Friday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) attempted to downplay the massive amount of fraud that has been perpetrated by his state’s Somali community.

…She (the whistleblower) added that it “really blew her mind” because they were always able to get through the checkpoints.

“Typically, what would happen is a law enforcement officer would come, check their credentials,” she told Collin, adding that it wouldn’t be too difficult to identify them now because there is a paper trail of their travels, as well as surveillance video.

“Their I.D.s were always documented and probably their plane tickets as well,” she explained. “So there is a trail of that out there.”

The whistleblower estimated that in the five years she was a TSA agent at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport at least “a billion dollars went through the airport.”

The former agent said in one instance, a Somali man has a carry on bag “filled with brand new passports,” lamenting that “he was allowed to go through the checkpoint.”

We are less than a year into the Trump administration and this corruption is now coming to light. Where was the Biden administration during their four years in office? How did they miss this (or did they)?