Tag: crime

Luxury cars and private villas: See how Minnesota fraudsters spent millions intended for hungry kids

Luxury cars, private villas and overseas wire transfers: CBS News obtained dozens of files and photos that reveal how Minnesota fraudsters blew through hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars as part of one of the biggest COVID-era fraud schemes.

The files document a spending spree in which defendants, many of Somali descent, took taxpayer money meant to feed hungry children and used it to buy cars, property and jewelry. Videos show them popping champagne at an opulent Maldives resort. In a text message, one defendant boasts: “You are gonna be the richest 25 year old InshaAllah [God willing].”

The documents feature exhibits from a recent federal trial, many of which are being made public by CBS News for the first time. The exhibits include:

  • A confirmation email for a stay in an overwater villa with a private pool at Radisson Blu Resort Maldives
  • Lakefront property in Minnesota
  • Receipts showing wire transfers to China and East Africa
  • First class tickets to Istanbul and Amsterdam
  • A 2021 Porsche Macan
  • Stacks of cash, texted between defendants

At the sentencing of a defendant who used taxpayer funds for cars and the Maldives vacation, 24-year-old Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel admonished him, saying: “Where others saw a crisis and rushed to help, you saw money and rushed to steal.” He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $48 million in restitution for his role in the fraud scheme.

Nur is one of dozens who siphoned hundreds of millions in stolen taxpayer funds — with questions still swirling about where all the money went. The crime has drawn renewed attention in recent weeks: House Republicans last week launched a probe into Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s handling of the cases, and the Treasury Department said it will investigate whether money made its way to al Qaeda affiliate al Shabaab, which is based in Somalia. 

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HORROR: Career Criminal with Over 50 Prior Arrests Brutally Murders Man with Machete in Connecticut

A career criminal with at least 50 prior arrests and 40 convictions murdered a man with a machete in Waterbury, Connecticut, on Saturday evening.

Kendren Barnes was charged with murder after ‘stabbing’ victim Ricardo Maldonado, 57.

According to reports, police were called to an apartment complex in Waterbury on Saturday evening and found the two men suffering from stab wounds.

Barnes and Maldonado were transported to a local hospital. Moldanado died from his injuries.

Barnes is being held on a $2.5 million bond.

The News-Times reported:

Police have identified the victim of a fatal stabbing on Grove Street over the weekend as a city resident.

Ricardo Maldonado, 57, of Waterbury died at the hospital after an incident on Grove Street Saturday, police Lt. Joseph Morais said in a news release Tuesday.

Morais said officers were called to an apartment building on the 100 block of the road at 7:17 p.m. Saturday for reports of a physical altercation involving a weapon inside. He said arriving officers located two male victims, later identified as Maldonado and 47-year-old Kendren Barnes, who had sustained wounds inflicted by edged weapons.

Both were transported to area hospitals, Morais said, where Maldonado later died from his injuries.

Barnes has an extensive criminal history. Police described him as a man who is “frequently arrested.”

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Who is Bill Stevenson? Ex-husband of Jill Biden whose second wife died after ‘domestic dispute’ at Delaware home

Jill Biden‘s ex-husband has been thrust back into the spotlight after his wife was found dead in her home after an alleged domestic dispute, just years after he released a memoir about his and the former first lady’s union. 

Bill Stevenson’s 64-year-old wife, Linda, was found unresponsive in her Delaware home on Sunday, TMZ reported, after police were called to the property. 

Bill, 77, married Jill in 1970 when she was just an 18-year-old student and he was just a few years older.

At the time, Jill, now 74, believed their union would last a lifetime, but the pair split after five years of marriage in 1975. 

That same year, she met the would-be president, Joe Biden, and two years later, the two would marry when she was 26 and he was 34. 

In her 2019 memoir, When the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself, Jill admitted she first thought she and Bill were ‘destined for each other.’

‘Looking back, it may seem like a mistake of youth,’ she scathingly wrote about the man she indirectly referred to as ‘charming and entrepreneurial’ in the book. 

Bill, who owned an ale house, told the Daily Mail a different story in 2020. He claimed the would-be political powerhouse couple’s love story was born from an affair that shattered his marriage to Jill.

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Heiress sparks new turn in Somali fraud scandal by speculating link to MURDER of Minnesota Democrat lawmaker

A Minnesota state senator has slammed actress and socialite Sara Foster after she linked the murder of Democrat lawmaker Melissa Hortman to the erupting Somali fraud probe. 

Hortman and her husband Mark were fatally shot in their Brooklyn Park home by suspect Vance Luther Boelter earlier this year.

Boelter allegedly planned to target 45 liberal lawmakers and abortion providers, according to police.

But Foster, the 44-year-old daughter of Canadian record producer David Foster, took to X on Saturday to suggest Hortman’s death is linked to investigations into alleged fraud in the Somali community in Minnesota.

Scrutiny over the state’s spending intensified this week after a viral video emerged showing an apparently empty daycare in Hennepin County which has allegedly received $4 million in taxpayers’ money. 

‘So are we just planning on pretending like her murder isn’t connected to the multi billion fraud scandal just uncovered? Mmmmkay,’ Foster wrote.

Foster wrote the comment alongside a video showing Hortman weeping after she had cast the lone Democratic vote in favor of repealing eligibility for undocumented adults to access MinnesotaCare just days before she was killed. 

Foster’s remarks were panned by Republican State Senator Julia Coleman, who shut down the ‘conspiracy theory’, stating ‘the fraud had nothing to do with the assassinations’.

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Woke Oregon city hires MURDERER who executed teenage girl to its police review board

A convicted murderer who gunned down a 19-year-old girl has sparked community outrage after being voted back onto the city’s police review board. 

Kyle Hedquist, 47, was jailed for life without parole for murdering Nikki Thrasher in 1994. 

The Oregon native led Thrasher down a remote road and shot her in the back of the head to prevent her from telling people about a burglary spree he had embarked on. 

Hedquist was released in 2022, with former governor Kate Brown arguing that he was 17 at the time of the crime, which means ‘he shouldn’t be locked up for life.’

Now, the Salem City Council has reappointed Hedquist in a five-to-four vote on December 8, despite his 27-year sentence for the execution-style killing.

The Board reviews police conduct complaints and makes policy recommendations to the enforcement.

The 47-year-old was also appointed to the Citizens Advisory Traffic Commission and the Civil Service Commission, an advisory board that oversees traffic and fair employment issues, according to KATU2.

Board members also train with police and participate in ride-alongs to understand how officers operate. 

Backlash has erupted in the blue-state city, with rising concerns voiced by the Salem Police Employee’s Union and other council members. 

‘To think that we’re providing education on kind of how we do what we do to someone with that criminal history, it just doesn’t seem too smart,’ the association’s president Scotty Nowning told KATU2.

Nowning emphasized that the concerns stem from fixing the city’s oversight structure and are not necessarily about Hedquist. 

‘If you move him off there, if you don’t change your guardrails or what the requirements are to be on there, you could just put someone else on there with you know equal criminal history or worse,’ he told the outlet.

Salem Professional Fire Fighters Local 314 even created a website to slam the decision. 

‘As police and fire professionals in the Salem community, we are asking Salem residents to stand with us,’ the site read in part.

‘Tell [the council] to reconsider this decision and fix the mess that they created.’

Other committee members opposed Hedquist’s reappointment, but Councilor Mai Vang approved it.

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Black Privilege: Canadian Judge Reduces Sex Offender’s Sentence Over Race

A former university football player who choked a woman until she was almost unconscious and forced another one to give him a blowjob was given a reduced sentence by a Canadian judge of just two years in prison because he’s black and was ‘feeling intense pressure’ at the time of the attacks.

“It should be noted that but, for the contents of the Impact of Race and Culture Assessment (IRCA), the pre-sentence report and all the mitigating factors surrounding Omogbolahan (Teddy) Jegede, this sentence would have been much higher,” Justice Frank Hoskins said in his Nova Scotia Supreme Court decision last Wednesday, the National Post reports. 

The author of an Impact of Race and Culture Assessment, a report funded under a new initiative from the Trudeau Liberals, wrote that Jegede was feeling intense pressure around the time of the assaults and did not have culturally appropriate support to turn to.

Of note, IRCAs are relatively new in Canadian law – and have become popular thanks to an initiative which began under the Justin Trudeau liberals. 

The attacks happened in 2022 and 2023 at residences at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S. – with one woman testifying that Jegede choked her, and the other testifying that she was forced to perform oral sex. Both women said they were physically dominated by Jegede, who is much larger than they are. 

In addition to his two-year jail sentence, Hoskins added three years of probation – which can be reduced if Jegede makes significant progress in counseling. 

The Crown had requested a sentence of up to 36 months, while Jegede’s defense asked the judge to reduce his sentence to community service. 

“In my view, this is a case where the need for denunciation is so pressing the incarceration is the only civil way in which to express society’s condemnation of Mr. Jegede’s conduct,” said Hoskins, noting that Jegede came from a strong, church-going family with strict parents that had stable careers. The now-convicted sex offender told the court that he grew up feeling loved by his family. 

He then began a degree in kinetics at St.FX, however those studies were interrupted by his sex crimes and subsequent charges. 

Jegede was born in Lagos, Nigeria and immigrated to Canada in 2010. His mother said that the transition to Canada was a significant adjustment for the family, and their youngest son “experienced bullying in elementary school due to his accent and racial identity as a black child.”

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Illegal Aliens Busted for $14 Million Gift Card Fraud

Another day, another exposé of illegal alien crime. It turns out the three men who committed $14 million gift card fraud in Texas were illegal aliens.

Kristians Petrovskis, Romunds Cubrevics, and Nurmunds Ulevicus from Latvia are accused of the fraud, per a news release last week from the Texas Financial Crimes Intelligence Center (TFCIC). But KCWX2 shed more light on the crime by stating that all three men entered America illegally and for the express purpose of committing criminal activities.

Petrovskis, Cubrevics, and Ulevicus are accused of gift card cloning, according to TFCIC, and at the time of their arrest had over 400 gift cards in their possession. Authorities say the illegals were stealing multiple cards a day from multiple stores, and have been doing so for most of this year. This was an organized and highly successful racket.

The Biden administration made it extremely easy for foreigners with ill intention to enter the United States. In fact, Democrats practically invited criminals to come to our country, and they are still trying to protect those criminals from being arrested by federal immigration officers. The Biden-Harris administration allowed at least 18,000 known or suspected terrorists into the United States, on top of many more murderers, rapists, thieves, drug traffickers, and other criminals.

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Three Honduran Nationals Sentenced in Multi-State Bank Fraud Conspiracy

Three Honduran nationals were sentenced to prison for their roles in a bank fraud conspiracy resulting in significant losses to small businesses and community banks in more than a dozen states, announced Acting United States Attorney M. Scott Proctor.

 The sentences were imposed by United States District Court Judge Philip P. Simon at hearings held on December 12 and 15, 2025.

Carlos Aquino Sosa, 26 years old, of Honduras, was sentenced to 41 months in prison followed by 1 year of supervised release after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. He was also ordered to pay $533,043 in restitution.

Edwin Palacios Sosa, 27 years old, of Honduras, was sentenced to 27 months in prison followed by 1 year of supervised release after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of illegal re-entry. He was also ordered to pay $533,043 in restitution.

Delvin Velasquez Romero, 33 years old, of Honduras, received a time-served sentence dating back to July 8, 2024 (17 months in custody), followed by 1 year of supervised release after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of illegal re-entry. He was also ordered to pay $233,569 in restitution.

These defendants have no legal status within the United States and will each be subject to a separate and immediate removal process upon release from prison.

According to documents in each case, on January 11, 2023, Aquino Sosa, Palacios Sosa, Velasquez Romero, and their co-conspirators used fake identification cards to cash 169 fraudulent paychecks totaling $233,569 at three branches of the same bank in the Northern District of Indiana. The fraudulent paychecks were designed to look like they had been issued by a company that operates dairy farms in the Northern District of Indiana.

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FBI Intercepts Reveal Hillary Clinton’s Shady Discussions on Campaign Donations with Convicted Foreign Felon

Newly released FBI documents show that the bureau intercepted communications involving Hillary Clinton discussing donations with Indian hotel magnate Sant Singh Chatwal, a convicted felon.

The revelations, detailed in documents provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee and published on December 15, expose concerns over foreign bribery, pay-to-play schemes, and the potential misuse of the Clinton Foundation as a personal and campaign slush fund during Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

The documents stem from the FBI’s “Cracked Foundation” investigation, which began probing the Clinton Foundation’s activities as early as 2010.

At that time, The Daily Caller found the FBI recorded Chatwal discussing illegal straw donations to Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Chatwal, a longtime Clinton family friend, Clinton Foundation trustee, and key fundraiser, pled guilty in 2014 to laundering those donations through straw contributors and forfeited $1 million as part of a deal with the Department of Justice.

In a chilling quote captured by an FBI informant, Chatwal admitted, “That’s the only way to buy them, get into the system,” referring to his efforts to influence politicians through illicit contributions.

By the spring of 2016, as Hillary Clinton was on the verge of securing the Democratic presidential nomination, FBI field officers in New York, led by Assistant Director in Charge Diego Rodriguez, urged headquarters in Washington, D.C., to interrogate Clinton about these foreign donations.

The agents prepared a series of pointed questions that highlighted red flags uncovered in the investigation, including evidence that the FBI had been “intercepting individuals associated with the Clinton Foundation.”

One of the most damning pieces of evidence was a recorded conversation between Clinton and Chatwal, where they discussed settling her lingering 2008 campaign debt.

According to the documents, Clinton reportedly told Chatwal he could no longer donate directly to her campaign but should instead funnel money to the Clinton Foundation.

Agents wanted to ask Clinton directly, “Based on information derived from a recorded conversation, you (HC) and Mr. Chatwal had a conversation regarding settling debt. You indicated to Mr. Chatwal that he could no longer donate to your campaign but he should instead donate to the Clinton Foundation. Were donations made to the Clinton Foundation used for personal use and/or to settle campaign debt?”

This exchange raises serious questions about whether the Clinton Foundation, ostensibly a global charity, was being exploited as a backdoor mechanism to pay off political debts or fund personal expenses, circumventing campaign finance laws.

State Department documents, first revealed through WikiLeaks in 2011, confirmed Chatwal’s role in helping settle Clinton’s 2008 campaign debt, further fueling suspicions of impropriety.

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Fresh fears Texas serial killer could be on the loose as three more bodies pulled from bayous

Fears of a Texas serial killer resurfaced in Houston after three more bodies were recovered from the city’s bayous this week.

The latest discoveries bring the number of bodies found in the waterways in 2025 to at least 34, according to KTRK, just one less than last year’s total.

Authorities have repeatedly denied that the high figure is the work of a mystery murderer, as terrified locals have demanded answers.

On Monday, a body was found in the Buffalo Bayou near the 100 block of Crawford Street, per Houston Public Media.

The deceased was recovered after someone spotted a body in the water and called 911, bringing a response from the Houston Police Department’s dive team.

That same day, another body was found near the Brays Bayou at the intersection of Texas Spur 5 and Old Spanish Trail.

The person was found on Christmas Eve in the Buffalo Bayou around 3500 Memorial Parkway, Houston police said on X.

Since 2017, at least 198 dead bodies have been found in Houston’s bayous, per Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office records obtained by KPRC 2.

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