Tag: fraud

Meta Chose Revenue Over Policing Chinese Scam Ads, Documents Show

Meta knowingly tolerated large volumes of fraudulent advertising from China to protect billions of dollars in revenue, a new investigation from Reuters unveiled this week. Internal documents show executives prioritized minimizing “revenue impact” over fully cracking down on scams, illegal gambling, pornography and other banned ads.

Although Meta platforms are blocked inside China, Chinese companies are allowed to advertise to users abroad, according to Reuters. That business grew rapidly, reaching more than $18 billion in revenue in 2024—about 11% of Meta’s global sales. Internal estimates showed roughly 19% of that revenue, more than $3 billion, came from prohibited or fraudulent ads.

Meta documents reviewed by Reuters describe China as the company’s top “Scam Exporting Nation,” responsible for roughly a quarter of scam ads worldwide. Victims ranged from U.S. and Canadian investors to consumers in Taiwan. An internal presentation warned, “We need to make significant investment to reduce growing harm.”

In 2024, Meta briefly did just that. A dedicated China-focused anti-fraud team cut problematic ads roughly in half, from 19% to 9% of China-related revenue. But after what one document described as an “Integrity Strategy pivot and follow-up from Zuck,” the team was asked to pause its work. Meta later disbanded the unit, lifted restrictions on new Chinese ad agencies, and shelved additional anti-scam measures.

Keep reading

Ed Department: Nearly 2,000 Minnesota ‘Ghost Students’ Fraudulently Received $12.5 Million

In Minnesota, home to the largest population of Somali immigrants in the U.S. and the site of numerous fraud investigations, fraudsters received $12.5 million in student loan and education grant money, according to a letter Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The letter calls on Walz to resign, and states that a new fraud prevention system at the department has found over $1 billion in “attempted financial aid theft,” including by international fraud rings and artificial intelligence (AI) bots.

“[Y]our careless lack of oversight and abuse of the welfare system has attracted fraudsters from around the world, especially from Somalia, to establish a beachhead of criminality in our country,” McMahon wrote. “As President Trump put it, you have turned Minnesota into a ‘fraudulent hub of money laundering activity.’”

“At the beginning of this year, the U.S. Department of Education became aware that fraudulent college applicants, especially concentrated in Minnesota, were gaming the federal postsecondary education system to collect money that was intended for young Americans to help them afford college,” she said.

McMahon referred to the fraudsters as “‘ghost students’ because they were not ID-verified and often did not live in the United States, or they simply did not exist,” and noted that, “[i]n Minnesota, 1,834 ghost students were found to have received 12.5 million in taxpayer-funded grants and loans.”

They “collected checks from the federal government, shared a small portion of the money with the college, and pocketed the rest–without attending the college at all,” according to the letter.

The letter comes after Somalis in Minnesota, in particular, have been exposed as having massively defrauded American taxpayers. They have even reportedly funded terrorists back in their country.

The news surrounding Somali fraud includes allegations of multiple scams, including claims that an autism “provider” enrolled Somali children who did not have an autism diagnosis in a welfare fraud scheme.

The outrage, among many other cultural problems with Somalis, has resulted in President Donald Trump intending to cancel some Somalis’ temporary protected status.

Keep reading

How fears of being labeled ‘racist’ helped ‘provide cover’ for the exploding Minnesota fraud scandal

In the aftermath of the massive Feeding Our Future scandal and broader allegations of systemic fraud in Minnesota’s social programs, a troubling theme has emerged: accusations of racism repeatedly used to deflect scrutiny, intimidate investigators and stall accountability. 

Rumors and reports of fraud in Minneapolis, primarily within the city’s exploding Somali community, have been circulating for at least a decade, but criticism of the fraud has been largely dismissed by elected Democrats as “racist” or being underpinned by animosity toward foreigners. News stories focused on Somali fraudsters in recent years were shot down as “racist.”

“The whole story kind of died under these accusations that people were being racist,” Bill Glahn, policy fellow with Center of the American Experiment, told Fox News Digital. “Oh, maybe somebody stole a little bit here, a little bit there, but there’s nothing systemic going on.”

Former assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Teirab, who helped take on federal prosecutions in the Feeding Our Future case, described to Fox News Digital how individuals implicated in fraud leaned on racial accusations as a shield. According to Teirab, suspects explicitly invoked race during a secretly recorded meeting with Attorney General Keith Ellison, asserting that investigators were targeting them “only because of race.”

Keep reading

Senator John Kennedy Reads Damning Memo That Explains Why Minnesota Democrats Kept the Fraud Quiet for so Long

As the massive fraud scandal in Minnesota continues to unfold, people are wondering how it was allowed to happen. How did these people get away with such huge financial crimes?

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana might have an answer for that.

He recently read part of a memo that came from the Attorney General’s office in Minnesota. It makes the situation pretty clear.

This is from Wall Street Apes on Twitter/X, emphasis is ours:

Senator John Kennedy reads an internal memo from the Minnesota Attorney General’s office

They openly say they did not stop the Somalia immigrant fraud because Democrats would lose votes

“Here’s what a fraud investigator in the Attorney General’s office said. She said, There is a perception that I’m quoting now, that forcefully tackling this issue would cause political backlash from the Somali community, which is a core voting block for Democrats”

Keep reading

Minnesota Gets New Fraud Czar Amid Somali Welfare Scandal

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Friday named Tim O’Malley the state’s director of program integrity, tapping the judge and former superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to root out fraud in government.

O’Malley, who also worked as an FBI agent and spearheaded reforms in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, will be involved across agencies to oversee that taxpayer funds are not misappropriated.

Walz also announced a partnership with WayPoint Inc., a Minnesota firm made up of former law enforcement and federal agents focused on forensic accounting and investigations.  They will develop a comprehensive fraud-prevention strategy for the state.

Walz said he was proud O’Malley would be working to protect Minnesota taxpayers from fraud in government programs.

“Today we are building on the work of the last several years and strengthening Minnesota’s defenses against fraud,” Walz said.

“If you commit fraud in Minnesota, you will be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Keep reading

In echoes of Minneapolis, whistleblower says Maine company bilked Medicaid dollars

Ahealth services contractor in Maine founded by a Somali immigrant is now accused by a whistleblower of defrauding the state’s Medicaid program, raising concerns in Congress that fraud in government programs is more widespread than previously known.

The recent charges from last month connected to a $1 billion fraud ring among Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, Minnesota, have focused renewed attention from lawmakers on rooting out fraud in federally-funded programs across the country. 

Just days after the Minnesota fraud ring surfaced in the national conversation, a whistleblower who worked for a health services contractor in Maine came forward in a public interview and alleged the company, Gateway Community Services, defrauded the state’s Medicaid program for years. 

The company was founded by Abdullahi Ali, a Somali-American who also ran for office, a position equivalent to governor, in a Somali state. At the time, he was serving as Gateway’s executive director. 

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, says that he plans to probe the cases in both Minnesota and Maine to determine whether similar fraud using public dollars exists elsewhere. He believes there is a high chance his committee will find more.  

“This does appear that it’s a very organized scheme in multiple states with groups of Somalis,” Comer said in an interview with NewsNation, which first aired the whistleblower’s allegations. “I would go out on a limb and say this is happening in other states with other social programs with other groups,” Comer said.

Keep reading

Half of U.S. has hepatitis B? Media’s go-to vaccine expert gets fact-checked for puzzling interview

One of the most media-savvy vaccine advocates in the U.S., perhaps second only to record-breaking federal pensioner Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, has allegedly been caught falsely claiming he was not invited to address a federal vaccine advisory panel’s recent meeting and spreading wildly inflated numbers on hepatitis B infections, a subject of the meeting.

The perceived gotcha on Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia but also a skeptic of COVID-19 boosters for healthy young people, prompted critics to flag other instances in which Offit allegedly refused to engage and to pick apart his media appearances and choice of venues, such as entertainment-focused TMZ.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials “repeatedly” contacted Offit to present at its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ meeting last week, “via emails, phone calls and a speaker-request form,” physician-turned-investigative journalist Maryanne Demasi wrote this week, contradicting Offit’s claim to CNN on Dec. 5 on day two of ACIP’s meeting.

“I actually wasn’t invited to present at today’s meeting” but rather invited in October “to speak about vaccines to this group,” Offit told the host in the 9-minute interview when she asked why he declined to speak. (He has appeared on CNN several times this year.)

Offit then tried to redirect the conversation toward how ACIP had become an “anti-vaccine advisory committee” that threatens children’s health by no longer recommending COVID vaccines by default. He didn’t elaborate on how young children “clearly … benefit” from COVID vaccination, given their near-nil risk of serious harm from the virus. 

When the host pressed Offit to clarify what he thought the October invitation meant, he said he received a “vague recommendation to come speak to us” but not to speak “about this subject” – hepatitis B vaccination, whose recommendations ACIP changed later that day to wait two months to vaccinate newborns whose mothers test negative for the virus.

Keep reading

Newsom’s ‘National Model’ For Homeless Wracked By Fraud

Gov. Gavin Newsom has made reducing the homelessness crisis in California a top priority, saying the scale of the state’s efforts is “unprecedented” and calling for the continued expansion of his signature effort – Project Homekey – that has already cost $3.75 billion. 

But in a state with more than 181,000 homeless individuals, or about one-third of the U.S. total, Homekey has been marred by failures and scandals, including a lack of government oversight and accountability as well as a federal investigation into allegations of fraud in Los Angeles. 

Newsom, who appears to be preparing for a presidential bid in 2028, could make Homekey, which he calls a “national model,” a talking point in his campaign. The state claims the program has created almost 16,000 permanent housing units that will serve over 175,000 people. But since the state doesn’t track outcomes – whether people placed in housing saw their lives improve or if they returned to the streets – the program’s effectiveness is unclear, according to a critical 2024 state auditor’s report. 

“[Our budget] is bloated with homeless spending, a bottomless pit and taxpayer boondoggle that doubles down on failure year after year,” the Republican-turned-Democrat Los Angeles Councilwoman Traci Park said at a meeting in May. “Hundreds of millions of dollars on bridge homes and Homekeys and interim housing sites, and no one can even tell us which ones are operational.”

What is clear is that homelessness in California has skyrocketed in the five years Homekey has been in place, growing by more than 20%, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. That’s an increase of some 36,000 people between 2019 and 2024.

Homekey has been touted by officials as a more cost-effective way to house the homeless. By hiring developers to convert excess motel and hotel rooms and other existing structures into permanent housing, the costs are two to three times lower than building new units, according to the auditor’s report.

Keep reading

Tim Walz Blames White Men For Widespread Fraud in Somali Community

Minnesota Governor and failed Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz blamed white men for the widespread fraud in the Somali community.

It was recently revealed that Walz and the Democrats allowed a $1 billion heist to take place largely through the Somali community in Minnesota.

The massive scandal happened on Tim Walz’s watch. The GOP-led Oversight Committee is conducting an investigation into the Somali fraud ring.

Some reports suggest the fraud may have exceeded $8 billion.

A reporter asked Walz about the rampant fraud in the Somali community.

“Do you want to hear more from the members – the leaders of the Somali community to say we need to look at ourselves and hold ourselves accountable..” the reporter said.

Walz shifted the blame to white men and said the Somalians are the secondary victims.

“It’s not law abiding citizens. If that were the case, there’s a lot of white men who should be holding a lot of white men accountable for the crimes they have committed,” Walz said.

“I think what you’re seeing here is they’re secondary victims in this…by signing them up and they say well I had no idea I was in this program,” Walz said.

“Each community’s got this in their own midst, but to blame them and say that they should have been responsible for stopping it, I think that’s a pretty hard reach,” he said.

“But no, I think this idea that the Somali community is to blame for this because they didn’t do more. I think that’s how we got into this,” he said.

The Somalians are the victims here.

Keep reading

Whistleblower Sounds Alarm on Somali Scam in Another State

A whistleblower is sounding the alarm on alleged fraud perpetrated by some in Ohio’s Somali community.

During an appearance on Fox News, attorney Mehek Cooke suggested that there is “massive fraud” in Ohio’s Medicaid home care system tied to a small group of scammers in the Somali community in Columbus. 

Cooke explained, “the problem today is not the community…it’s actually the criminals within the Somalian community that have exploited Ohio’s Medicaid program because we have a system rigth now.”

She pointed out how the perpetrators target elderly people, coaching them to claim they have serious health or memory problems. They collaborate with medical professionals to get them approved for in-home care services — funded by taxpayers. Some doctors are allegedly “getting kickbacks, which means that if they rubber-stamp this, once that individual or that provider starts getting funding throught hes tate of Ohio, they get a kickback.”

Cooke detailed an entire organized operation built around the scheme. The group uses “door knockers” who canvas neighborhoods to recruit seniors and families into the program. Once these individuals are signed up, the perpetrators bill the state for unnecessary services, or services that are never providded at all. This is a practice known as “ghost billing.”

Even further, many of those involved in the scam are not going along with it willingly, according to Cooke. She said those who refuse “have been excommunicated from a lot of these activities and a lot of even patient care.” However, these individuals feel a duty “to expose this” because the scammers are stealing money meant for those who genuinely need it. 

Keep reading