Tag: taxes

ANOTHER ONE: Los Angeles County Employees Charged for $700,000 Pandemic Fraud Scheme

The country is already reeling from the massive fraud scandal unfolding in Minneapolis. Now it turns out that there is another huge fraud scandal coming to light in Los Angeles, California.

In this case, Los Angeles County employees were busted for $700,000 in fraud charges that stem from an unemployment scheme.

Isn’t it amazing how many people seem to have a talent for gaming system out of massive piles of cash?

KTLA News reports:

11 Los Angeles County employees charged in over $700,000 pandemic unemployment fraud scheme

Eleven more Los Angeles County employees have been charged with felony grand theft for allegedly stealing unemployment benefits while working full-time during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

The new charges, announced by the office, follow an earlier round of filings in October against 13 county employees accused of similar conduct. In total, prosecutors say 24 employees fraudulently collected a combined $741,518 in unemployment benefits between 2020 and 2023.

District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said his office intends to pursue the cases aggressively. “My office will continue relentlessly rooting out fraud and prosecuting government employees who steal from the public they serve,” Hochman said in a statement provided by the District Attorney’s Office. While most county employees “ethically fulfill their duties,” he said, those who “exploit the system and betray the public’s trust” will face prosecution.

More from NBC News in Los Angeles:

Among the newly charged people, several of them worked for the Department of Health Services at the time of the alleged theft.

One employee, Georgette McKinney, a supervising child support specialist for the Child Support Services, stole over $55,000 with her own identity – in addition to stealing over $76,000, using 28 fictitious identities, the district attorney’s office said.

In another case, Jessica Alcorta was charged for stealing over $36,000 in unemployment benefits while working as a legal office support assistant for the district attorney’s office.

“While the vast majority of Los Angeles County employees ethically fulfill their duties and are dedicated to public service, there are some who exploit the system and betray the public’s trust,” District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement. “My message to fraudsters is unequivocal: If you steal from taxpayers, you will be prosecuted.”

If the Trump administration starts actively looking for fraud in blue cities, they’re probably going to find themselves very busy.

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480 Minnesota Health Services Employees Warned Candidate Kamala Harris of Walz, Fraud in 2024

Kamala Harris and the DNC were repeatedly warned about the widespread fraud in Minnesota under the leadership of Democrat Governor Tim Walz during her 2024 presidential campaign, a group of nearly five hundred Minnesota Department of Human Services employees reported Monday.

“[W]e did write to Kamala Harris and the DNC – multiple times – warning them about Tim Walz & his incompetence, fraud scandals and retaliation,” a post on the Minnesota Staff Fraud Reporting Commentary (formerly, Minnesota Department of Human Service Employees) X.com account explained Monday:

“We tried our best to keep the public informed as our tweets are public. Maybe Kamala Harris turned a blind eye to fraud like her running mate?”

The employees shared a reply to then-candidate Harris back from September 11, 2024 warning her about the fraud taking place in their state and the harm being wrought by her running mate, Gov. Walz:

“Ms. Harris, please listen to Minnesota State Employees who work everyday (sic) to deliver best services possible to our state & people who expect no less & pay our wages. Tim Walz has caused incredible harm to our state & agencies, retaliated against whistleblowers against fraud.”

The post includes a chart of “Selected Minnesota Fraud/Waste Cases 2019-2024” listing 21 state-funded programs receiving a total of more than a half-billion dollars of taxpayer money.

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The Minnesota Fraud Scandal Just Got a Whole Lot Worse for Walz and Omar

Earlier this month, over 400 Minnesota Department of Human Services employees accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz of being “100% responsible” for the massive fraud in Minnesota. I wrote at the time that the Minnesota Somali fraud scandal could take down Walz, and every day it looks even more likely. And what do you know, the scandal just got significantly worse for Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar. Newly surfaced photographs show both Democrats smiling alongside Abdul Dahir Ibrahim, a Somali national and convicted fraudster who spent decades in America as an illegal immigrant before Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently arrested him.

Ibrahim’s rap sheet stretches back to Canada, where he was convicted of asylum and welfare fraud before slipping into the United States through New York in 1995, following his deportation from Canada. Despite his history, Ibrahim managed to remain in the country for roughly 30 years, accumulating at least a dozen traffic and parking violations along the way. In 2002, he was arrested for driving without a valid license and for providing false information to law enforcement, earning him a fine and one year of probation. An immigration judge ordered his removal on April 3, 2004, citing significant fraud associated with him. Yet Ibrahim wasn’t arrested until 2025, a staggering 21 years after that deportation order was issued.

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Chicago Public Schools Blew $23.6 Million on Luxury Trips. The Full Story Is Far Worse.

Public school districts exist for one purpose: educating children. They are entrusted with public dollars, charged with preparing the next generation for citizenship and the workforce, and expected to manage resources responsibly. 

But in many major districts, that mission has collapsed under political control, financial irresponsibility, and a refusal to prioritize students. Few places illustrate this breakdown more clearly than Chicago Public Schools.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, a recent report from the CPS Office of Inspector General detailed $23.6 million in improper or wasteful travel spending—dollars that should have gone directly toward recovering from historic learning losses. 

Instead, district employees used public funds for high-end hotel suites, airport limousines, first-class airfare, and “professional development” conferences that resembled vacations more than training. One staff member extended a four-day seminar into a weeklong stay at a Hawaiian resort costing nearly $5,000. 

Another principal booked a luxury suite on the Las Vegas Strip and quietly extended the trip to celebrate an anniversary. In one school alone, 24 employees billed taxpayers $50,000 to attend a single Las Vegas conference.

The abuses extended overseas. CPS employees charged more than $142,000 for travel to South Africa, Egypt, Finland, and Estonia—complete with hot-air balloon rides and game-park safaris. These trips took place while Chicago families were told that there wasn’t enough money to fully address learning gaps or chronic absenteeism.

Most troubling, the waste accelerated when federal pandemic relief funds flooded district budgets. 

Of the $23.6 million identified, $14.5 million was spent in just 2023 and 2024. 

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SURPRISE! Watchdog Claims U.S. Weapons Left Behind by Biden in Afghanistan Now Make Up ‘Core’ of the Taliban Military

A watchdog has now confirmed that American weaponry left behind in the botched 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan now makes up the ‘core’ of the Taliban military.

This means that if American soldiers are ever again put on the ground in an armed conflict in Afghanistan, there is a distinct possibility that they could be injured or killed by weapons paid for by the American taxpayer. Thanks, Joe Biden!

Joe Biden could have been impeached for a number of things, but he should have been impeached for this. All of this.

Just the News reported:

Afghan watchdog concludes billions in weapons U.S. left behind form ‘core’ of Taliban military

The inspector general responsible for scrutinizing U.S. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan has detailed the billions of dollars wasted by the U.S. government during the 20-year war in the country and concluded that the arsenal of U.S.-provided military weaponry that was left behind now forms the “core” of the Taliban’s own military machine.

A massive number of U.S.-made and U.S.-supplied weapons and military facilities were left behind in Afghanistan as a result of President Joe Biden’s troop withdrawal announcement in April 2021, which resulted in the dissolution of the Afghan military, a chaotic U.S. evacuation, and a Taliban takeover in August 2021.

The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued its “final forensic audit report” this week more than four years after the U.S. withdrawal and evacuation from the country, concluding that “these U.S. taxpayer-funded equipment, weapons, and facilities have formed the core of the Taliban security apparatus.” SIGAR said in its final report that it will close its doors at the end of January 2026 as a result of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2025.

It’s simply maddening.

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Small Business Administration Uncovers $1M Somali Community Fraud in Minnesota

The Small Business Administration has discovered that the fraud among the Somali community in Gov. Tim Walz’s Minnesota is still growing with its finding of one million dollars in PPP loan fraud.

Trump-appointed Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler took to her X account to report finding the massive fraud of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that was launched to save businesses struggling to survive the oppressive government policies meant to address the COVID crisis in 2020.

“Numerous individuals and nonprofits indicted in the $1 billion Minnesota COVID fraud scandal, including Feeding Our Future, received SBA PPP loans in addition to other state and federal funding,” Loeffler wrote. “I have ordered an investigation into the network of Somali organizations and executives implicated in these schemes.”

“Despite Governor Walz’s best efforts to obstruct, SBA continues to work to expose abuse and hold perpetrators accountable, full stop,” she said.

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US waste in Afghanistan revealed

The US lost up to $29 billion to mismanagement and misconduct during its occupation of Afghanistan, all while pursuing unrealistic goals in the country, according to a new report from a government watchdog.

Released on Wednesday, the report concludes a 17-year investigation by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which identified 1,327 instances of waste, fraud, and abuse totaling $26-29.2 billion, most of it lost through inefficiencies and improper use of assets. Fraud accounted for around 2% of the total and abuse for 4%. The watchdog noted that more than $4.6 billion of taxpayer money could have been saved.

America’s “20-year mission to build a stable, democratic” Afghanistan was a failure, undermined from the start by unrealistic expectations and compounded by corruption and misuse of public funds, SIGAR said. According to the watchdog, Afghanistan should serve as a cautionary tale, warning policymakers that any future reconstruction effort of similar scale must acknowledge the risk of failure from the start.

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What did Ilhan Omar know about the $1B welfare fraud case in her Minnesota district?

US Rep. Ilhan Omar’s close ties to the $1 billion welfare scam in her Minnesota congressional district are being uncovered.

Omar (D-Minn.) held parties at one of the key restaurants named in the fraud, knew one of its now-convicted owners, and one of her own staffers has also been convicted — both for stealing millions. 

Omar even introduced the bill that led to $250 million in fraud. Yet she claims to have been completely unaware of it. 

“[Rep. Omar] knew who these people were. People she personally knew were making tens of millions of dollars in this program,” claimed Bill Glahn, a policy fellow with the Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment, to The Post. 

“She had been inside the [Safari] facility on numerous occasions and couldn’t put 2 and 2 together? Either she’s terminally naive, or knew and didn’t care,” Glahn added.

Around $250 million was handed out by the Minnesota government to provide meals to schoolchildren during the pandemic from 2020 onward.

Instead, it was pocketed by corrupt business owners, including Salim Ahmed Said. He’s the co-owner of Safari Restaurant, where Omar held her 2018 congressional victory party.

Said was found guilty in August of stealing over $12 million for serving 3.9 million “phantom” meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He blew much of the money on a $2 million Minneapolis mansion and a $9,000-a-month shopping habit at Nordstrom, according to prosecutors.

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Full Metal Retard: Walz Rolls Out Taxpayer-Funded Paid Leave For Illegals

Less than one week after the NY Times (of all rags) torched Minnesota governor Tim Walz over a massive and sprawling fraud scandal involving Somalians that federal prosecutors say siphoned over $1 billion from the state’s social safety net programs, Walz is opening yet another avenue for fraud – giving taxpayer-funded leave illegal immigrants.

Under the Minnesota Paid Family and Medical Leave Program which Walz signed into law ahead of its Jan. 1 start date, “undocumented workers” will receive benefits, according to the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce’s FAQ page. 

The program provides payments to Minnesota residents who need time away from work for “serious health” reasons, or to take care of a family member – be it an infant or an ill relative, the Washington Examiner reports. What’s more, if an individual qualifies for both medical and family leave, they can “double dip” – getting taxpayer funds for a total of 20 weeks or 5.5 months, each year. These receiving benefits can also “top off” paid leave by using paid time off (PTO), sick days, and vacation hours in addition to their leave of absence. 

Program beneficiaries will receive between 55% and 90% of their regular wages while on paid leave – up to a maximum amount of $5,692 per month. 

“Are people going to abuse the program?” Walz replied when questioned on Tuesday at an event about potential fraud. “How disrespectful to people to assume that ailing Minnesotans are scamming. That’s what I hear from [critics] all the time. I trust Minnesotans.”

“I believe they know you’re not gonna get rich, and it’s not your full salary. You’re not gonna scam and take time off,” Walz continued. 

Meanwhile, Walz continues to downplay growing concerns after a $1 billion fraud was uncovered by City Journal, in which Somali immigrants were stealing welfare funds and funneling the money home to Somalia. 

The fraud involved a series of schemes that federal authorities say took root over the past five years, many centered within Minnesota’s Somali diaspora, where individuals established companies that billed state agencies for services that were never performed. Prosecutors say 59 people have been convicted across various cases so far, in three separate plots.

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James Comer Says Massive Fraud Uncovered in Minnesota is Just the ‘Tip of the Iceberg’ – Will Look at Other States

Congressman James Comer of Kentucky is the chair of the House Oversight Committee. During a recent appearance on FOX News, Comer described the massive fraud uncovered in Minnesota as just the ‘tip of the iceberg.’

Comer indicated that other blue states will be investigated for similar problems.

This is likely the reason why so many blue states have been so reluctant to turn over their SNAP data to Trump Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins. They know that any examination of this data is likely to uncover huge amounts of fraud and abuse.

If things were this bad in Minnesota, just imagine what’s going on in places like California and New York.

Partial transcript via NewsBusters:

The massive fraud being exposed in Minnesota is just “the tip of the iceberg,” when it comes to social program scams in states run by Democrat governors, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said Wednesday.

Democrat governors like Minnesota’s Tim Walz insist on pouring tax money into social programs where fraud is pervasive – even when they’re alerted to the fraud by whistleblowers, Comer said in an interview with Fox News:

“The fraud entailed a whole menu of government programs – social programs. And that’s the kind of the mojo for the Democrat Party now: they want to sink more and more money into social programs, but yet they refuse to accept responsibility for any type of waste, fraud and abuse.”…

“This is the tip of the iceberg and I think this investigation could lead to many more investigations in other states and, hopefully finally, some savings of taxpayer dollars.”

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