Millions of dollars in taxpayer funds stolen as part of massive welfare fraud schemes in Minnesota — the majority of which involve the state’s sizable Somali population — may have been funneled to the Al-Qaeda affiliated Somali terrorist organization al-Shabab, according to a new report.

The radical jihadist group, which has carried out several deadly attacks in Somalia and against western interests in the region over the past two decades, has likely been the beneficiary of stolen funds that were routed to Somalia by those defrauding Minnesota’s welfare system, according to a report from City Journal. Federal authorities have confirmed that millions of dollars stolen as part of the schemes did indeed arrive in Somalia, and that some of the funding was likely wired to al-Shabab.

“This is a third-rail conversation, but the largest funder of al-Shabab is the Minnesota taxpayer,” a source who worked on a federal investigation centered on Somali Minnesota residents joining foreign terrorist groups told the outlet.

“There is an issue here that is real, and if there is ever an event that is traceable back to these funds, or to people from this area, then this situation will take on a whole new set of optics,” the source added.

al-Shabab has carried out dozens of suicide bombings and other violent attacks as part of it’s decades-long insurgency against the Somali government
Photo: AMISON Public Information

Minnesota has been plagued by a number of high profile fraud scandals involving taxpayer funds in recent years. The most notable among them was the Feeding Our Future scheme, for which prosecutors have racked up 56 criminal convictions in what they allege was a plot to steal $300 million from a federally funded program meant to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report from the New York Post.

More recently, the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Minnesota has uncovered multimillion-dollar fraud schemes targeting the state’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program and a federally funded autism services for children program. All in all, prosecutors estimate that billions of dollars in taxpayer funds have been stolen as a result of the various schemes.

“To be clear, this is not an isolated scheme,” acting US Attorney Joseph Thompson said in September when announcing the first charges in the autism fraud scheme. “From Feeding Our Future to Housing Stabilization Services and now Autism Services, these massive fraud schemes form a web that has stolen billions of dollars in taxpayer money.”

“Each case we bring exposes another strand of this network. The challenge is immense, but our work continues,” he added.

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