Tag: fraud

DOJ Uncovers $29M More In Minnesota Benefits Fraud, Calls State ‘Epicenter For Fraud In America’

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it identified roughly $29.1 million in government benefits fraud in Minnesota over a one-month period.

Between Sept. 30 and Oct. 30, the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division and the District of Minnesota charged, convicted, or sentenced 13 individuals for proven or alleged schemes that caused nearly $83 million in intended losses to the federal government.

The DOJ said in an Oct. 30 statement that it uncovered $29.1 million in fraud in newly charged cases, which is part of the total $83 million.

The targeted benefits programs include Minnesota’s Medicaid program, the Federal Child Nutrition Program, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Some are accused of engaging in bribery as part of carrying out their schemes.

In one case, Shaakir Mohamud Ibrahim, 54, of Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, is facing wire fraud and money laundering charges for being part of a scheme to defraud the Federal Child Nutrition Program through the nonprofit Feeding Our Future.

Ibrahim and his co-conspirators are alleged to have falsely claimed to be serving thousands of meals to children every day for four months. The department alleged he used this fake meal distribution to collect more than $1.1 million in reimbursements through the nonprofit.

In another case, the DOJ said it charged Feisal Mohamed Elmi, 46, of New Brighton, Minnesota, with 11 counts related to health care fraud in an $8.2 million scheme that targeted the state’s Medicaid program.

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Chinese Couriers Posed As Federal Agents To Scam Over $10 Million In Cash From Elderly Victims In 19 States

A federal judge in Pennsylvania sentenced three Chinese nationals this month for their roles in a scheme in which couriers went to elderly victims’ homes, posed as federal law enforcement officers and took cash they said would be protected, the Justice Department announced. More than 50 victims in 19 states lost more than $10 million.

The scheme began with a computer “pop-up” that falsely told victims their computers or bank accounts had been compromised, according to the release. Couriers then collected the cash in person, and the conspiracy moved it to other members in Los Angeles.

Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann handed down the sentences in the Middle District of Pennsylvania over four days:

  • Yankun Jiang, 26, of State College, received 84 months on October 22 and was ordered to pay $1,267,122 in restitution. Prosecutors say he started as a courier and became a key supervisor of the couriers, collecting stolen cash from the others, packaging it and coordinating delivery to Los Angeles.
  • Lei Bao, 24, of New York, received 30 months on October 20 and was ordered to pay $377,591. She made several cash pick-ups and, on at least five occasions, carried suitcases of stolen cash from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.
  • Hanlin Yang, 26, of State College, received 24 months on October 23 and was ordered to pay $400,800. He went to the homes of at least six victims to pick up cash.

Together the three got 138 months. The restitution orders total $2,045,513, about a fifth of the more than $10 million the conspiracy took, so most of the money is unaccounted for in the sentences. The release does not say how much was recovered.

The three were among eight Chinese nationals indicted in July 2025, when the office announced the charges. The Sun-Gazette reported that the eight had obtained student visas to attend college in the United States, and that the conspiracy ran from about August 2023 to February 22, 2024. The charge was conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries up to 20 years. The new release does not say what happened to the other five defendants or whether any of the three faces deportation.

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DOJ Flags Nearly 831,000 Student Aid IDs In Nationwide ‘Ghost Student’ Fraud Probe

Federal investigators say overseas-linked fraud rings used stolen American identities to claim college aid, while new safeguards could affect legitimate applicants.

Federal investigators have identified 830,840 potentially fraudulent student aid IDs associated with nearly $130 million as the Justice Department pursues an alleged international scheme that used stolen Americans’ identities to obtain federal college assistance.

The department announced Operation Ghostbusters on October 29, unveiling charges against five defendants across Virginia, New Jersey, and Nebraska and a seizure of more than $750,000 in cryptocurrency connected to the suspected network. Prosecutors say individuals in Kenya worked with accomplices in the United States to collect aid refunds for people who never attended classes.

The government has not established that every flagged ID was fraudulent or that all $130 million reached criminals. The FBI separately reports more than $32 million in identified losses in similar ghost-student schemes, with additional losses suspected. Those figures describe different categories and should not be added together.

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Treasury Uncovers $8 Billion in Suspicious Foreign-Directed Wire Payments: Bessent

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration has identified more than $8 billion in potentially suspicious wire payments directed by foreign agents from 2021 to 2025.

The Trump administration has uncovered more than $260 billion in fraud, prevented $72 billion in fraud, and brought enforcement actions against nearly $60 billion in fraud since January 2025, Bessent said during a news conference on Oct. 30 in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

He also announced that the administration’s anti-fraud investigations have led to hundreds of arrests in Minnesota.

“The days of indifference are over … wherever the money leads, the full weight of government will follow,” Bessent said.

The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an alert on Friday advising financial institutions to “be vigilant in detecting, identifying, and reporting suspicious activity” linked to certain cross-border payments involving U.S.-based money services.

In light of the $8 billion uncovered in foreign-directed wire payments, the Treasury warned financial institutions that bad actors can exploit U.S.-based money services to move funding overseas and conceal illegal activities, such as providing funds for terrorist organizations.

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REVEALED: The OBAMA ADMINISTRATION Investigated Ilhan Omar and Found Evidence She Married Her Brother – Here’s Why They Ultimately Did Not Take Action

The investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) marriage to her “dirty dandy” alleged brother goes back further than anyone realized, and she previously got off on a technicality.

As TGP readers know, Omar has long been dogged by allegations that she married her second husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, as part of a scheme to get him U.S. citizenship. This has now become part of the sprawling federal investigation into Omar’s immigration fraud actions that could result in her deportation or imprisonment.

Omar previously said, “Not to my knowledge,” when asked whether she was related to her former husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.

Now, a new bombshell has arrived courtesy of The New York Times.

The investigation into Omar’s reported marriage to her fashionable brother did not begin under President Trump. Nor did it begin under Joe Biden.

It began under the Obama regime!

Per the Times, Team Obama actually found evidence that Omar’s marriage to her brother was fraudulent.

But the case allegedly stalled because the crime fell outside a five-year statute of limitations.

Of course, when it comes to Team Obama, take this with a grain of salt.

From The New York Times:

The F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security investigated the marriage in summer 2016, during the Obama administration, and found some evidence that it was fraudulent, current and former officials said.

Speculation that Ms. Omar committed marriage fraud with a brother has shadowed the Minnesota Democrat’s political career for more than a decade, and President Trump repeated the accusation last week. She has long called it a right-wing conspiracy theory that federal officials debunked during her first race for elected office in 2016.

But that case stalled chiefly because prosecutors concluded that the potential crime, a felony, fell outside a five-year statute of limitations, according to the current and former officials, most of whose law enforcement careers spanned several presidential administrations.

A source familiar with the probe told the New York Post that the “Biden US Attorney in Minnesota shut it down” shortly after entering office in 2021.

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Vance Says El-Sayed Lied About Not Being Born in America

Vice President JD Vance said at a Michigan campaign rally that Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed lied about being an immigrant from another continent, pointing to the candidate’s past statements about his own origins.

Vance, stumping for Republican nominee Mike Rogers, told the crowd that El-Sayed had misrepresented where he came from, according to video posted by the Trump War Room. The vice president framed the race as a test of national loyalty.

“We have to understand what happens when our nation gives in to these kinds of people, to young men with zero attachment to its land or to its history, with a man who would lie, who is so ashamed of this state that he would lie about being an immigrant from another continent,” Vance said.

El-Sayed was born in Michigan in 1984 to Egyptian immigrants. At the Michigan Democratic Party’s 2017 convention, he told the party’s Progressive Caucus he “may be an immigrant from North Africa,” according to video obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. He listed U.S. and Egyptian citizenship on a 2014 Columbia University résumé and stated onstage at a 2016 Detroit conference that he held “dual citizenship.”

El-Sayed’s campaign has denied he ever held Egyptian citizenship. Spokeswoman Roxie Richner told the Free Beacon the candidate was misinformed by a relative and called the claim “an error based on what he was told by family members secondhand.” Richner said El-Sayed “is not a dual citizen by any verifiable metric and never has been.”

Responding to Vance at an earlier stop, El-Sayed described himself as “a Wolverine, not a weasel” who was born and raised in the state, and his campaign has said Republicans lift his past comments out of context.

The exchange comes as Vance campaigns for Rogers, whose toss-up race against El-Sayed could determine Senate control. Vance told supporters at an earlier Monroe rally that El-Sayed is “one of the craziest, one of the most far-left, and one of the most radical people running for high office in the history of the United States of America.”

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Polling Industry’s Collapse Continues: Total Number of Fake Polls Exposed Reaches 15

As Democrats push to gain control of Congress, polls that may have shown them leading various battleground races have been exposed as part of a widespread fraud.

A group called Wedgewood Polling admitted that the numbers it tossed around in Georgia, Michigan, Texas, and other states were fake, according to USA Today, which was among the outlets that said they were fooled.

“The Wedgewood results in some cases were slightly more favorable for Democrats than other polls in the same race,” USA Today noted, citing one poll that had incumbent Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff ahead of his Republican rival, Rep. Mike Collins, by 10 percentage points.

Time noted that Newsweek, MS NOW, and Politico also embraced the fake polling. The New York Times admitted to using 15 of Wedgewood’s polls.

The outlet noted that the political polling site FiftyPlusOne exposed the fakery, and that when confronted, Wedgewood said the polling was an “experimental project.”

“How easy is it for an entirely fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously, and expose how little scrutinization exists in media and in public commentary?” the firm wrote in a since-deleted post.

“The short answer: Far too easy,” it wrote.

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Deported migrant who ’60 Minutes’ painted as sympathetic family man claimed he was gay on asylum application

Sunday’s “60 Minutes” featured the story of a deported Malian national who was painted as a loving husband and father despite insisting he was homosexual on his asylum application.

The CBS News segment focused on Moussa Diawara and his family, speaking to his wife, 16-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter. But the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says Diawara, who arrived in the United States in 2001, is actually an example of widespread fraud throughout the immigration system.

“The ‘60 Minutes’ sob story tonight highlighted an illegal alien and his wife and two children. One problem. The illegal alien claimed he was a HOMOSEXUAL in order to try and dodge deportation to Mali,” ICE posted on X.

Fox News exclusively obtained Diawara’s 2009 asylum application in which he declared that he needed to remain in America because he was a gay man who could be killed if sent back to his native country.

“My asylum application is based upon ground of well founded past persecution and an undisputable fear of life threatening to my person if I were to return to my country Mali. In fact I had experienced extreme punishment and persecution based on the ground of my sexual orientation,” Diawara wrote in his asylum application.

“Since I came to the USA I had the possibilities to express my feelings to men without any embarrassment no reserve. Indeed, my tribal group and community as a whole had reported my sexual orientation to my family back home because such behavior is unwelcome in my society,” he continued. “My life is hence worth threatened if I have to go back to my country because I could be executed either by the Islamic group or the community.”

Diawara also wrote in the application that he was “banished” from attending Malian activities because he’s “a homosexual,” who has received threats.

“These are the reasons why I applied for asylum in the USA to seek protection from the US government,” Diawara wrote.

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The Grotesque Tangle Of Sedition

“We are also starting to consult federal workers on how to do some blocking inside the govt agencies during emergency situations — but please do not put that on the form.” —Eric Manton, of the DRG

They put it on the form, though, cuz somebody screwed up. Oopsie. . . .

Get this: the reason that a color revolution is underway at all in America is not really political anymore — if it ever even was. It’s because a whole lot of people have committed crimes against this country. And with each wave of attempted sedition, they have compounded their crimes with more seditious acts, arrant hoaxes, lawfare, election fraud, censorship, and wholesale looting of taxpayer dollars to keep themselves out of prison.

That’s what USAID was all about, and why it was taken down early in Trump 2.0. It was a nexus of racketeering and the home-base of the Deep State’s foot soldiers, bureaucrats who actually managed the money streams to NGOs that ran everything from election rigging operations to vast social services fraud in blue states, in concert with a Democratic Party that had nothing but rackets to keep it going.

That’s how the USAID’s defunct Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) has morphed into the new Democracy Renewal Group (DRG). This new DRG operates under another project called Branch-4 — as in a fourth branch of government, the permanent bureaucracy — and Branch-4 operates under an NGO called the Action Center on Race and the Economy Institute (ACRE Institute), a 501(c)(3) public charity based in Chicago (EIN 82-1199695). Note, the ACRE Institute’s primary funders include the Ford Foundations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. You see how byzantine this is, echoing exactly the hyper-complex administrative workings of government bureaucracy itself?

And so, that’s why, for instance, one Eric Manton, a former USAID employee now working with DRG said, “. . . we are also starting to consult federal workers on how to do some blocking inside the govt agencies during emergency situations.” Blocking? What they mean by that is federal employees lodged in the official agencies should “help run out the clock. . . develop selective hearing. . . forgetfulness. . . or blame your workload” for whatever it takes to block enforcement of any executive action proposed by the Trump administration.

Those tactics are explicitly proposed by another org, the Federal Workers Alliance for Democracy (FWAD formerly known as Federal Workers Against DOGE), which is affiliated with DRG primarily as a partner in the Renew American Democracy (RAD) strategy and through the broader Branch-4 ecosystem. Confused yet? You should be. The flak-storm of acronyms is beloved by Lefty-leftists for exactly that purpose.

RAD is run by Daniella Reiff, a 20-year veteran of USAID color revolution programs in Europe and Africa. Her co-coordinator at RAD is one Paul Zeitz, an osteopath and rabbi who worked previously for USAID in Africa and for the State Department as Director of the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development, whatever that was. FWAD is led by one Beverly Schreiber

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The Fallout From Corruption: How Did a Florida Mayor Defraud Thousands With a COVID-19 Program?

There’s nothing that bothers me more than when a person is elected to a position of power, but then chooses to abuse that power instead of actually doing something good with it. And that’s the case with Kissimmee, Fla., Mayor Jackie Espinosa, who has reportedly defrauded a large number of people with, of all things, a COVID-19 scheme.

According to this report from ABC News, Espinosa was arrested earlier this week on charges of theft and fraud, with her and family members running some kind of COVID-19 business relief program – under her own administration.

Charges include grand theft, a second-degree felony, as well as an organized scheme to defraud, which is a first-degree felony.

This comes from a case where she reportedly utilized $50,000 in funds through the city’s Business Boost 2.0 program for her own personal use.

“This is the local government equivalent of insider congressional stock trading,” noted Blaise Ingoglia, who serves as Florida’s chief financial officer.

Espinosa has been charged, posting a $70,000 bond and pleading not guilty to the charges.

But the details get more disturbing. According to the report, the money, provided through grant funds in the program, went towards businesses including a dance studio, a diner, and a real estate company, all owned by Espinosa’s family.

“The evidence makes it very clear that there was intent to engage in this conflict of interest that ultimately abused her office to enrich herself,” said Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier in a statement. “Mayor Espinosa demonstrated an intent to create, streamline and simplify, reduce oversight of, and more easily enable a process where by herself and immediate family could apply for and receive city funds to which she was not entitled.”

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