A current story within the conservative publication Metropolis Journal that claims “the biggest funder of al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer” has unleashed a thundering refrain of vitriol upon the Somali neighborhood.
Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo’s article asserts that al-Shabaab, a terrorist group based mostly in Somalia, is being funded by the remittances despatched by Somali Minnesotans who’ve defrauded taxpayer-funded applications.
I say this as an American of Somali ancestry who has investigated fraudsters and as somebody who has written about it for the Reformer: I can’t show a unfavourable, however the story, particularly in all its sensationalism, seems to be little greater than an effort by the right-wing propaganda machine to whip up hatred towards Somali-People.
Over the previous three years, federal prosecutors in Minnesota have charged 78 individuals in what they’ve referred to as the biggest pandemic reduction fraud within the nation. The overwhelming majority of the defendants concerned on this fraud — named after a nonprofit on the middle of the scandal, Feeding Our Future — are from the Somali neighborhood however are Americans.
Federal prosecutors have seized only a fraction of the cash stolen — greater than $50 million to this point — as a result of fraudsters spent their proceeds on lavish purchases, together with actual property overseas. However not in Somalia.
If federal prosecutors had any inkling that the ill-gotten beneficial properties had been going to a terrorist group, don’t you assume they’d have introduced expenses? The U.S. Lawyer in Minnesota isn’t any stranger to charging Somalis for ties to al-Shabaab and ISIS. Why on earth would they maintain off on this occasion?
These of us who’ve really adopted the Minnesota fraud circumstances carefully know that point and time once more, prosecutors have acknowledged the fraudsters had been motivated by greed, not ideology.
That’s why the cash that’s gone abroad went to Kenya, which isn’t stunning to me as somebody who has investigated Medicaid fraud circumstances for the Minnesota Lawyer Common’s Workplace.
Fraudsters make investments their proceeds in Kenya as a result of it’s worthwhile and isn’t straightforward for the U.S. authorities to retrieve. Kenya, which has a major Somali inhabitants, has a secure and functioning authorities not like neighboring Somalia.
Thorpe and Rufo cite retired Seattle Police Detective Glenn Kerns, who ominously states that Somalis had been “routing important quantities of money on industrial flights” to Somalia.
Thorpe and Rufo cite two nameless sources to suggest that the cash collected by hawala networks is being despatched to al-Shabaab in Somalia. After the story was printed, Rufo took to X to jot down, “Somalis in Minneapolis are stealing billions from People taxpayers, loading luggage of money onto industrial flights, and funding terrorism again in Mogadishu.”
These statements are supposed to alarm, however the precise state of affairs is that Somalia doesn’t have a proper banking system, and Somalis depend upon hawala networks — a form of casual banking system developed after the civil warfare broke out within the 90s — to ship a reimbursement residence. Which they’re legally allowed to do: The Division of the Treasury’s Workplace of Overseas Belongings Management states that people “can ship remittances to Somalia, so long as the transactions don’t contain events listed on the OFAC’s Specifically Designated Nationals and Blocked Individuals Record.”
The hawala couriers are by regulation required to report the cash they’re carrying and its vacation spot.
Al-Shabaab is a sanctioned entity by the Division of Treasury’s Workplace of Overseas Belongings Management. In March 2024, the Treasury Division imposed sanctions on 16 entities and people that had been recognized to launder cash for al-Shabaab, which was simply the most recent spherical of sanctions imposed by the U.S., EU and UN.
In brief: Gathering massive quantities of money and delivering it to al-Shabaab would require avoiding the feds at a number of steps.
Al-Shabaab, which fashioned twenty years in the past, has myriad methods of producing income inside Somalia, and it’s true they’re recognized to tax companies — together with hawala companies — within the rural areas underneath their management, however the impression given by each the article and Rufo’s social media posts are a gross distortion.
Somalis in Minnesota quantity roughly 87,000, which is a fraction of the tens of millions of Somalis who reside within the diaspora, lots of whom ship a reimbursement residence. The remittances we ship retains afloat the native financial system and is a lifeline to tens of millions in Somalia.
For those who lived in Minnesota in 2018, all this will sound acquainted. That’s as a result of an analogous declare was made about tens of millions of {dollars} in money flying out of MSP to Somalia. That declare, which was reported by Fox9, implied that baby care fraud was funding Al-Shabaab. (Bizarrely, Rufo and Thorpe declare “Our investigation reveals, for the primary time, that a few of this cash has been directed to an much more troubling vacation spot: the al-Qaida-linked Islamic terror group Al-Shabaab” regardless that they cite the identical retired Seattle police detective because the Fox9 story from seven years in the past.)
The Workplace of Legislative Auditor performed an evaluation in 2018 and submitted a report stating:“Regardless of the intense nature of the allegations, neither (former state Division of Human Providers worker Scott) Stillman nor Fox9 introduced particular proof to substantiate the allegation.”
Once more, federal prosecutors by no means charged anybody with terrorism financing.
Sadly, that reporting by Fox9 in 2018 gave fraudsters cowl — it allowed for the dismissal of allegations of fraud as simply unhealthy religion, racism and Islamophobia. Feckless Democratic-Farmer-Labor politicians got license to disregard warnings about fraud in public applications, and the remaining is historical past.
Rufo’s precise intentions grew to become all-too-clear hours after the piece ran, when he unleashed a torrent of anti-Somali posts on X, whereas pleading for the eye of President Donald Trump.
Rufo took to X to jot down, “Somalis are stealing billions of {dollars} from American taxpayers and sending money to terrorists again residence. It’s time for @realDonaldTrump to revoke Short-term Protected Standing (TPS) for all Somali nationals in america. It’s time for them to go residence.”
The Somali-Al-Shabaab piece made its means by the right-wing propaganda machine, amplified by Benny Johnson and Matt Walsh. Somali-People had been described as undesirables, who’re a drain on society.
“Minnesota good” works inside a homogenous, high-trust society. It’s doesn’t work while you import a whole inhabitants of Somali welfare pirates.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) November 22, 2025
There’s a distinction between Little Italy, Little Tokyo, and Little Mogadishu. Not all cultures are equal. Some exist in a state of civilization, others exist in a state of barbarism. Select correctly.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) November 21, 2025
Hours later, Trump introduced he was ending Short-term Protected Standing for Somalis in Minnesota, citing “fraudulent cash laundering exercise.”
Rufo celebrated: “We broke the Somali fraud story” — a laughable assertion to the handfuls of investigators and journalists engaged on it through the years — “and referred to as on President Trump to revoke Short-term Protected Standing for all Somalis. Now the president has delivered. That is how we win.”
To be clear: The Short-term Protected Standing impacts about 700 individuals nationwide. The defendants in Feeding Our Future and Medicaid fraud are practically all Americans.
The fact of the Somali-American expertise is that we got here to the U.S. in the hunt for a greater life. The overwhelming majority of us are sincere, law-abiding residents, and have been appalled by these in our neighborhood who’ve preyed upon applications created to assist low-income Minnesotans, together with Somali Minnesotans.
Can extra be carried out to root out fraud in Minnesota? After all. Democratic-Farmer-Labor elected officers ought to handle the problem of fraud extra forcefully. I might additionally wish to see fewer situations of Somali enterprise homeowners reflexively organizing towards measures designed to guard the integrity of our social applications.
Regrettably, Thorpe and Rufo’s vulture journalism gives a gap to those that search to dismiss the issue of fraud in Minnesota as right-wing demagoguery, undermining the laborious work carried out to make clear — and prosecute — the rampant fraud that has beset Minnesota’s public applications.
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