Tag: fraud

Rep. Ilhan Omar Breaks Silence Regarding Her Alleged Connections to Massive $250 Million COVID-Era Fraud Scheme

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has finally spoken out on allegations that she was involved in a major fraud scandal during the COVID pandemic.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, court exhibits from the massive $250 MILLION Feeding Our Future fraud trial have revealed that Omar’s name appeared several times in email chains and text messages with convicted fraudster Aimee Bock.

Bock served as the mastermind behind the largest COVID-era fraud scheme targeting children’s nutrition programs.

According to trial exhibits unsealed in Aimee Bock’s case, Omar’s office was directly involved in communications with the fraud ring.

Bock has also stated that she believes Omar knew exactly what was going on and actively helped keep the fraudulent program alive.

“I struggle to believe that she wouldn’t have known,” Bock said of Omar.

This would certainly make sense. As The Gateway Pundit’s Cassandra MacDonald noted, Omar personally introduced the Maintaining Essential Access to Lunch for Students (MEALS) Act in March 2020, which gave the USDA authority to issue those waivers during the pandemic.

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DEAD PEOPLE, ‘GHOST STUDENTS,’ AND BOTS? Trump Education Sec. McMahon Says Biden-Era Student Aid System Was a Fraud Magnet — Taxpayers Already Saved $1 BILLION

The federal student aid system was apparently a feeding trough for fraudsters and according to President Trump’s Education Secretary Linda McMahon, some of the “students” cashing in weren’t even alive.

In a jaw-dropping interview on Fox News, McMahon revealed that the Department of Education uncovered widespread abuse in the federal student aid application system, including bot-driven applications, so-called “ghost students,” and even dead individuals allegedly receiving federal student aid.

Secretary McMahon laid it all out: the Trump administration has completely revamped the FAFSA program with ironclad real-time identity verification and they’re already saving taxpayers billions.

According to the Department of Education website:

The U.S. Department of Education (the Department) launched a new, real-time fraud detection capability for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) form, marking the largest and most comprehensive, nationwide fraud prevention effort in the agency’s history.

Effective immediately, fraud detection is built directly into the FAFSA itself, with every applicant evaluated in real-time using risk-based identity screening. Applicants who display a certain level of fraud risk will now be required to present government-issued identification before accessing federal student aid funds such as Pell Grants and federal student loans.

The Department also recently began conducting a one-time review of all previously submitted 2026-27 FAFSA forms using the new screening technology, ensuring that all federal student aid program dollars are supporting students and families, not fraudsters. The Department estimates that its efforts to identify and deny federal student aid to fraudulent students will save taxpayers over $1 billion during this year’s FAFSA cycle.

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What If We Really Are Just Exposing the Tip of the Federal Fraud Iceberg?

Open the Books exposed yet another insight into the stinking, rotten catastrophe that is the massive, systematic, and continuing stealing from American taxpayers via an unknown number of federal social service programs that for decades have all but hung in their windows signs saying “Come Steal.”

Earlier this month, the headline on the Open the Books website proclaimed “Hidden Fees: Taxpayers on the Hook for Foreign-Linked Health Care Fraud Schemes.” Here’s what was found:

In January 2026, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz alleged that roughly $3.5 billion worth of fraud, so far unconfirmed, was happening through false hospice billings in a scheme he attributed in large part to what he called the ‘Russian Armenian mafia.’

So, Open the Books took a look at Oz’s claims, what fraud could be confirmed, and its cost to taxpayers. It turns out Russian and Armenian-linked fraud has cost taxpayers almost $1 billion in confirmed losses from Medicare and Medicaid, part of a Department of Justice operation dubbed ‘Operation Gold Rush.’

So now we must add the Russian-Armenian Mafia to the Somali robbing of Medicaid billions in Minnesota and Ohio, and whatever ethnicity may be the thieves behind the similarly systematic filching in California and Maine. And let’s not forget the Mexican Drug Cartels almost certainly have their greasy fingers in this long-running criminal enterprise, too.

Thus far, 11 individuals involved in the transnational criminal operation have been charged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Operation Gold Rush, which is the largest health care fraud case ever charged by federal officials. The criminals bought medical equipment firms, then submitted fraudulent Medicare claims using more than 1 million stolen Americans’ names.

Only 11 people charged? There were 324 individuals charged nationwide by the DOJ last year, and the total thus far in 2026 isn’t known. But let us assume DOJ doubles its 2025 level and takes 648 individuals to federal court for defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Affairs, SNAP/Food Stamp, and who knows how many more federal benefit programs? And we haven’t even mentioned fraud in Department of Defense procurement.

Given the international scope of the waste and fraud, one might reasonably expect that thousands of criminals are involved who should be identified, charged, convicted, and imprisoned. According to GAO in 2024, the government loses as much as $521 billion annually to fraud, but I expect that estimate to spiral as the DOJ’s current anti-fraud effort goes forward.

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Ilhan Omar Knew About $250 Million Somali Fraud Scheme, Convicted Mastermind Claims in Explosive Jailhouse Interview

Aimee Bock, the convicted mastermind behind the massive $250 million Feeding Our Future COVID meal fraud scandal, has dropped a bombshell from jail, saying she believes Rep. Ilhan Omar knew exactly what was going on and actively helped keep the fraudulent program alive.

Bock, the founder of Feeding Our Future, spoke to the New York Post this week from Sherburne County Jail, where she is awaiting sentencing after her March 2025 conviction on conspiracy, bribery, and wire fraud charges.

Dozens of individuals, mostly from Minnesota’s Somali community, have been convicted in the scheme that fraudulently billed the federal government for tens of millions of meals that were never served to low-income children during the pandemic.

“I struggle to believe that she wouldn’t have known,” Bock said of Omar.

Bock alleged that Omar’s office repeatedly stepped in to help secure and extend USDA waivers that dramatically loosened oversight of the child nutrition programs.

Those waivers eliminated the requirement for site inspections and allowed restaurants and other non-school entities to participate, opening the floodgates to massive fraud.

Omar personally introduced the Maintaining Essential Access to Lunch for Students (MEALS) Act in March 2020, which gave the USDA authority to issue those waivers during the pandemic.

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JD Vance Exposes $15 Million in Medicaid Theft by Single Migrant in Maine

Vice President JD Vance exposed the theft of $15 million in Medicaid funding committed by a single migrant in Maine during a visit to Bangor on Thursday.

“Fraud is exactly what happens when you’ve got a government that is not fighting for the American people but is fighting for fraudsters and illegal aliens. And it has to stop. And under the Trump administration, we are fighting it every single day,” Vance said speaking to a packed hanger at an event to boost former Gov. Paul LePage’s bid for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.

Vance, who called the State of Maine the “bronze medalist” in fraud after California and Minnesota, went on to say that LePage highlighted the fraud, but then-Democrat Attorney General Janet Mills refused to prosecute such cases.

The Ohioan pointed to just one case where a migrant billed the state for millions to provide “interpreter services” for illegal aliens, but never provided any such services at all.

“Rakiya Mohamed was not a particularly upstanding citizen… she was providing zero services and collecting $15 million over a five year period that was going directly into her pocket,” Vance said.

According to the Bangor Daily News, Rakiya Mohamed, who was associated with a company called Bright Future Healthier You, fraudulently billed Medicaid for millions in services that were never provided. Mohamed was one of four who were indicted in the scheme. Others included company president Abdihamid Hassan and Abdifitah Abdi. All three are Somali migrants. A fourth employee, Asmo Dol, was also implicated, but the suspect passed away in June only a few months after she pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Rakiya Mohamed pleaded guilty in March to filing a false tax return.

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GOP Rep. Steube: Blue States ‘Perpetuating Fraud’ to Drive Up the Number of the Amount of Money for Federal Programs

During an appearance on Fox Business Network’s “The Evening Edit,” Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) explained how some blue states turned a blind eye to fraud related to federal government programs, in particular Medicaid.

The Florida Republican reacted to comments from Vice President JD Vance, who said Democrat blue states were not investigating and prosecuting fraud.

Vance explained, “The Hawaii Medicaid Program has received billions and billions of dollars from the federal taxpayers. Guess how many convictions or indictments has Hawaii had over the last few years in its Medicaid fraud program? The answer is zero. Not a single indictment, not a single conviction. That means that if you’re committing fraud in Medicaid in Hawaii, you have had effectively free reign from the government of Hawaii to commit as much fraud as you want. That is a complete disgrace. New York has had nine indictments over the last year, nine indictments. That’s a $100 billion Medicaid program just in New York. Indiana, which has about a third of the population of the state of the New York, has had more than four times as many indictments over the same period.”

According to Steube, those states were allowing fraud to drive up spending numbers for those government programs.

Host Elizabeth MacDonald said, “You see what the Vice President is saying, Congressman, that basically, blue states are not interested in discovering fraud, but red Republican states are. What’s going on here?”

Steube replied, “Yes, they’re absolutely — they are perpetuating the fraud in these Democratic states because they want to drive up the number of the amount of money that comes to those states on these federal programs. I certainly hope that, with the President and the Vice President focused on this, that the DOJ is going to look at this, and the way that we can keep this from happening is keep federal dollars from going to these states until they go after this fraud, waste and abuse that’s happening.”

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Fmr Newsom top aide admits guilt in fraud scheme, takes plea deal

Dana Williamson, a former top aide to California Governor Gavin Newsom, pleaded guilty to federal fraud and tax charges as part of a plea deal agreement following accusations that she stole campaign funds from gubernatorial candidate and former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra.

Williamson, who served as former chief of staff for the California governor from 2022 to 2024, appeared at the Robert T. Matsui Courthouse in Sacramento, California on Thursday. While there, she entered a guilty plea to charges including conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, filing a false tax return, and lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), according to Eastern District of California court documents.

“Dana Williamson and her co-conspirators weaponized public trust for personal gain. They stole from a campaign account, fabricated contracts, filed false tax returns, and lied to federal agents … No title and no political connection places anyone above the law,” said FBI Sacramento Special Agent in Charge Sid Patel in a statement.

The former aide was arrested last November on 23 counts tied to what prosecutors described as a scheme to steal $225,000 from one of Becerra’s dormant campaign accounts to fund her personal expenses, including a $150,000 birthday trip to Mexico, tens of thousands of dollars spent on Chanel and Fendi handbags and an HVAC system for her home.

Prosecutors also accused her of conspiring with Becerra’s former chief of staff Sean McCluskie and lobbyist Greg Campbell to move the money from Becerra’s dormant account to pay for McCluskie’s wife’s no-show job after Becerra was elected head of the HHS under former President Joe Biden, according to prosecutors.

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Vance demands all 50 states crack down on Medicaid fraud

Vice President JD Vance has warned that the government may withhold federal Medicaid funds from states that fail to crack down on Medicaid fraud. This comes as the Trump administration launches a crackdown on suspected fraud in state programs and defers $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from California.

The initiative came as people across the U.S. have expressed concern about increasing health costs and barriers to access, some of which come from the federal government’s own acts.

“We’re announcing that the federal government is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from the state of California. And the simple reason is because the state of California has not taken fraud very seriously. We want California to get serious about this fraud,” said Vance at news conference.

The vice president was joined by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and other officials, who all outlined new requirements for Medicaid programs in all 50 states, including showing aggressive prosecution of fraud or risk losing government funding for their anti-fraud units.

Dr. Oz referenced data from the White House Fraud Task Force on rapid growth in California’s hospice and home health sectors and described a “stunning level of suspected Medicaid and hospice fraud” uncovered in California, such as a 1,500% increase in hospice claims.

“In February, we had the largest anti-fraud announcement from CMS. Today’s effort is larger. It’s much larger, and there’s a reason for that. Half of the fraud, we believe, in the federal government, could be coming out of health care services,” said Oz.

Vance also singled out Hawaii and New York as potential targets for Medicaid fraud as they have not taken the fraud issue seriously.

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“Completely Insane”: Federal Govt Withholds $1.3BN In Medicaid Reimbursements To California, Citing Fraud

The Trump administration will withhold $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments to California due to potentially fraudulent billing patterns, Vice President JD Vance announced on May 13.

The action comes among a host of others taken recently to crack down on fraudulent activity in Medicare and Medicaid.

“We want to protect these programs for the kids and the families who need them. We want to ensure that the American taxpayer isn’t getting fleeced,” Vance told reporters.

Analysis of Medicaid billing patterns in California aroused suspicion, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“We’ve discovered $630 million in billing from folks who are egregiously the top 5 percent of outliers in billing. These numbers are so big you can’t imagine anyone billing for these [amounts],” Oz told reporters.

California itself is an outlier among states, Oz said.

“In California, the growth of spending on personal care services is twice the rate of the average of the rest of the country,” Oz said.

“We estimate there’s $500 million that could be a risk of being taken from federal taxpayers.”

Fewer than 20 of 800 Medicare providers recently removed from the program due to suspicious billing activity have called to complain, Oz said, offering that as evidence that they likely were not legitimate providers.

VP Vance responded with a double take after hearing that wild stat from Dr. Oz:

“You’re saying that we kicked off 800 fraudulent healthcare providers off of the Medicare system and not a single one of them called the government and said, ‘hey, you made a mistake?'”

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Former CDC Autism Scientist Extradited to U.S. on Fraud, Money Laundering Charges

A former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientist who played a key role in research that denied any link between vaccination and autism was extradited to the U.S. last week to face charges of wire fraud and money laundering stemming from a 2011 indictment.

Poul Thorsen, 65, a Danish native, began working for the CDC in the late 1990s. In 2011, a federal grand jury indicted him for the alleged misuse of over $1 million in CDC grant money that was earmarked for autism and public health research. Thorsen is accused of redirecting the funds for his personal use.

Despite the indictment — and the existence of an extradition treaty between the U.S. and Denmark — Thorsen continued to live and work in Denmark. However, he was arrested in Germany last year on an INTERPOL warrant.

On May 8, U.S. Air Marshals escorted him from Germany to Atlanta, where he was arraigned.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which listed Thorsen on its most wanted list in 2012, posted a video of his extradition.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Thorsen faces two counts of wire fraud and nine counts of money laundering. He is being held without bail until trial.

In 2011, studies Thorsen co-authored were used to dismiss cases filed by the parents of autistic, vaccine-injured children that were part of the Omnibus Autism Proceedings pending before the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).

A 2016 book, “Master Manipulator: The Explosive True Story of Fraud, Embezzlement, and Government Betrayal at the CDC,” focused on the Thorsen case, describing him as “a world-class villain whose manipulation of health data gave CDC and big pharma what they wanted: a report clearing thimerosal of any possible role in the autism crisis.”

Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said Thorsen “was central to the CDC and Pharma lies that ‘vaccines do not cause autism.’”

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for CHD, said Thorsen’s work “set autism research back more than 20 years.”

“Previous administrations did not appear interested in pursuing Thorsen,” according to the MAHA Report. As a result, Thorsen was “living openly, apparently without concern of being captured in Denmark.”

HHS and DOJ did not respond to The Defender’s requests for comment.

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