Tag: taxes

Waste Of The Day: Austin Funds Allegedly Sent To Fake Companies

Topline: A then-employee at the City of Austin’s energy utility allegedly paid $980,000 in taxpayer funds to fictional companies with bank accounts belonging to his family members, according to a new report from the city auditor.

Key facts: Mark Ybarra was given a city credit card from 2018 to 2023 to hire repair companies for city buildings. He used it to pay 30 different vendors, but the city auditor could only verify that eight of them were real companies, according to the report. 

Ten of the companies reportedly had the same address, which the city auditor said is the home of one of Ybarra’s relatives. The businesses received $400,000 from the city. One of them had Ybarra’s email address listed as its contact information, according to the report.

The remaining $580,000 went to businesses that “appeared to be fake,” many of which were missing basic information like an address and phone number, according to the report. 

Ybarra resigned in October 2023 after Austin Energy officials asked questions about the invoices, according to the report. He was indicted for felony theft this September. 

Records obtained by Open the Books show Ybarra earned $534,797 in taxpayer-funded salary during the six years he was allegedly defrauding the city.

The city auditor claimed the alleged fraud went undetected because of Austin Energy’s “inefficient purchasing controls.” Most of his purchases were approved by former Facility Service Supervisor Sammy Ramirez, who never raised questions about the missing addresses and phone numbers on Ybarra’s invoices, according to the report.

Mark Ybarra’s wife, Ambrosia Ybarra, worked at the city’s Watershed Protection Department. She was questioned by the city auditor about her husband’s invoices but allegedly left the interview before it was over, according to the report. She resigned this November.

Ambrosia Ybarra made $70,174 in 2024. Ramirez made $87,262 in 2022, his last year of employment, but made as much as $104,698 in 2021.

Keep reading

Finally! Department of Ed. Ends One Billion in Student Aid Fraud, Promises More Action

The U.S. Department of Education has reported an end to more than $1 billion in attempted student aid fraud in 2025.

These reforms were needed after the massive waste and fraud resulting from loosened rules during the Biden regime.

“Federal investigators found nearly $90 million in aid had already been fraudulently disbursed, including over $30 million to deceased individuals and more than $40 million to bots posing as students,” according to a report from Campus Reform.

That’s a lot of fraud, but it’s hardly surprising. Under Democrats, fraud and waste are rampant, as we learned in the era of DOGE.

Common sense has returned with the Trump administration.

As Education Secretary Linda McMahon put it, needing ID “to access taxpayer-funded aid is common sense.”

“From day one, the Trump administration has been committed to rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government,” she said. “Merry Christmas, taxpayers!”

As President Trump has emphasized many times, his policies are common sense, and we are the party of common sense.

The Department of Education has also launched a website warning about AI scams posing as legitimate colleges that fool prospective students.

These AI fake sites use fake degrees and deepfake content to mislead students.

Now that we have a real president in the White House, “the Department is building a dedicated fraud detection team within Federal Student Aid to expand enforcement.”

This new unit will help protect students from these fake college scams.

While more work is needed, it’s refreshing that common sense is back, and this administration is doing a lot of work to protect students from these scams.

Keep reading

“Fraud tourists” traveled to Minnesota after a friend told them state programs were “a good opportunity to make money,” prosecutors say

Federal prosecutors announced new indictments Thursday in the widening Minnesota fraud scandal, this time involving two Philadelphia-based men accused of traveling to Minneapolis after a friend told them the taxpayer-funded programs there presented “a good opportunity to make money.”

Anthony Waddell Jefferson and Lester Brown are accused of siphoning millions from federally funded programs administered by Minnesota officials that were meant to help people with disabilities and those suffering from addiction.

Unlike many of the individuals previously caught up in the state’s sprawling fraud scandal, they don’t appear to have ties to Minnesota’s large Somali-American community. Prosecutors say they don’t appear to have ties to Minnesota at all.

“Minnesota has become a magnet for fraud, so much so that we have developed a fraud tourism industry — people coming to our state purely to exploit and defraud its programs,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson, who brought the new charges. “This is a deeply unsettling reality that all Minnesotans should understand.”

Court filings allege the men submitted up to $3.5 million in “fake and inflated bills” for Medicaid reimbursements after they set up a company intended to provide housing and other services to individuals who qualified for the program. They allegedly fleeced the housing program in Minnesota despite “living on the other side of the country and having no network in or connections to Minnesota or its communities.” 

Keep reading

FBI Director Kash Patel Confirms Somali Fraudsters are Being Referred for Denaturalization and Deportation

FBI Director Kash Patel dropped a major bombshell on the massive Minnesota fraud scandal on Sunday, revealing that the FBI is pushing for denaturalization and deportation of many involved in the $250 million scheme that ripped off taxpayer dollars meant for hungry kids during COVID.

Patel made it clear this is “just the tip of a very large iceberg,” with investigations ramping up to expose even more corruption in federal programs.

In a lengthy statement posted to X in response to the massively viral video uncovering Somali scams by independent journalist Nick Shirley, Patel detailed the takedown of a $250 million scheme centered around the Feeding Our Future network.

This organization, which was supposed to distribute federal food aid to children in need, instead became a hub for sham vendors, shell companies, and large-scale money laundering.

Keep reading

Minneapolis Daycare Scandal Reveals The Trajectory Of Blue Zone Fraud Culture

Let’s bracket a great piece of journalism with more details and some context.

By now, I assume most readers here have seen the magnificent work of the independent journalist Nick Shirley in Minnesota, showing widespread Somali fraud in government-funded programs by simply walking up to the front doors of daycare centers and healthcare organizations and inquiring about their services.

Daycare centers with millions of dollars in government funding and no children inside, and neighbors who say they’ve never seen children going in or coming out. This is a slam dunk, and I couldn’t possibly love it any more.

He names the daycare centers he visits, so you can start to find out how much the state of Minnesota knows about the scam without getting off the couch. Daycare centers are licensed and inspected: government inspectors regularly show up with a clipboard and look around. So go look at the record of inspections for Quality Learning Center of Minneapolis, the one in the video with the misspelled sign over the door. The whole thing instantly becomes darkly funny, because there’s no way anyone has ever believed that this is a functioning daycare center running at anything near its declared and funded capacity of 99 children.

Keep reading

FBI gives update on daycare accused of $4MILLION taxpayer fraud as Kash Patel says it’s the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and vows to ‘follow the money and protect children’

FBI Director Kash Patel revealed the bureau is cracking down on fraud in Minneapolis after a daycare was accused of stealing $4 million in taxpayer money.

In a lengthy X post on Sunday, Patel said the FBI has long been aware of the situation, vowed to ‘protect the children,’ and warned this is just ‘the tip of a very large iceberg.’

A Minnesota daycare with misspelled signs and no children inside reportedly received millions in taxpayer funds, sparking immediate outrage among lawmakers demanding answers. 

Allegations spread on social media this week after independent journalist Nick Shirley posted a video on X claiming state authorities allowed the ‘largest fraud in US history’ to go unchecked. 

Lisa Demuth, running for governor, is now pushing for stricter scrutiny to uncover fraud in the Democrat-led state. 

On Sunday, Patel announced that the FBI had already ‘surged personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota,’ even before the social media discussion took off running.

‘The FBI is aware of recent social media reports in Minnesota,’ Patel wrote, claiming that the bureau has moving to ‘dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs.’

‘Fraud that steals from taxpayers and robs vulnerable children will remain a top FBI priority in Minnesota and nationwide,’ he added. 

Keep reading

Network Mapping Nick Shirley’s Bombshell Report Of ‘Empty’ Minnesota Daycares

A viral video that has topped 76 million views on X within 48 hours has significantly heightened public scrutiny of multiple Minneapolis daycare centers linked to Somali operators that received millions in state and federal funding despite showing minimal operational activity. The apparent mismatch between allocated taxpayer funds and observable services strengthens a recent report by Christopher F. Rufo, which alleges that Somali-linked fraud in the left-wing-controlled state may involve front companies potentially diverting taxpayer funds to at least one overseas terrorist network.

The Democratic Party and its PR machine across left-wing corporate media outlets, including CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, 60 Minutes, The New York Times, and the Associated Press, have largely remained silent on citizen journalist Nick Shirley’s investigation.

We assess that as the dominant narrative of the widening Somali-linked fraud scandal in Minneapolis continues to go viral on X through “America First”-linked accounts, Democrats and their PR machine will move to advance a counter-narrative, given how optically damaging these revelations are ahead of the midterm cycle.

The days of Democrats defaulting to labeling opponents as “racists” or “fascists” appear to be over. They will likely need to develop new pejoratives to target those investigating allegations of welfare fraud on a scale larger than Somalia’s GDP.

Keep reading

Minnesota’s Largest Newspaper Completely Ignores Somali Fraud Scandal in Year-End Review and There’s a Likely Reason for That

The Minnesota Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in the state. You would think that they would be at least mildly interested in the Somali fraud scandal engulfing the state right now, wouldn’t you?

Well, as is often common in media bias, it is not only what the media does report but what they do not report, and they obviously do not want to report on this story.

The Star Tribune just did a year end review of the biggest stories and did not mention the fraud scandal at all.

For the left, there are a few problems with this story. First, there are no Republicans to blame for the scandal. Minnesota is run by Democrats and has been for decades. Second, the story involves the Somali community in Minnesota and liberals in the media are terrified of being called racists. Finally, the Minnesota Star Tribune has a direct connection to Governor Tim Walz.

A man named Steve Grove is the publisher of the Minnesota Star Tribune and before he got that job, he worked for the Tim Walz administration. You could not make this up.

This is from the Niskanen Center (bolding is ours):

Steve Grove is the publisher and CEO of the Minnesota Star Tribune. For many years, he had been a high-flying executive in Silicon Valley, working for firms like Google and YouTube. Then in 2018, he and his wife — who worked for a venture capital firm investing in startups outside of the coasts along with AOL founder Steve Case and now-Vice President JD Vance — decided to return to Minnesota, where Grove had grown up. His recent book, How I Found Myself in the Midwest: A Memoir of Reinvention, is about leaving the global hub of innovation for what’s often disparaged as “flyover country.” It’s also a story of recommitting to civic and political involvement, as Grove went to work for Minnesota governor (and future Democratic vice-presidential nominee) Tim Walz as head of the state’s departments of economic and workforce development. He was in this role when the pandemic struck the state, making him the principal liaison with a business community struggling to cope with restrictions meant to stem the spread of COVID.

This is from a 2023 press release put out by Walz’s own office:

Governor Tim Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan today congratulated departing Commissioner Steve Grove and thanked him for his years of service at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). Grove will depart from his position to serve as CEO & Publisher of the Star Tribune. Commissioner Grove was appointed by Governor Walz in January 2019.

“Commissioner Grove has truly exemplified what it means to be a public servant and advocate for the state of Minnesota,” said Governor Walz.

Do you think that might have something to do with the paper’s disinterest in a story that has the potential to end Walz’s career and even get him prosecuted?

Keep reading

Taxpayer-Funded Florida Theater Held ‘Drag Queen Christmas’ Show Despite Protests and AG Demands

In a move that has ignited fierce debate across Florida, the Pensacola city-owned Saenger Theatre hosted a sold-out performance of “A Drag Queen Christmas” on Tuesday, despite months of controversy, public outcry, and demands from state officials to cancel the event.

The touring drag show, known for its provocative content, drew protests outside the venue but proceeded without interruption.

The Saenger Theatre, a landmark in downtown Pensacola built in 1925, is fully owned by the city, with taxpayer dollars covering its maintenance and upkeep, though not directly funding the show itself.

Conservatives had argued that allowing such an event in a publicly funded space amounts to an endorsement of obscene and anti-Christian content, especially given its timing just days before Christmas.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier publicly condemned the city for permitting the performance, calling it a “public nuisance” that mocks Christian beliefs and risks exposing children to inappropriate material.

“Two days before Christmas, Pensacola will host a demonic, sexually explicit drag show at the city-owned Saenger Theatre,” Uthmeier wrote in a post on X. “Pensacola shouldn’t platform obscenities that denigrate its residents and expose kids to harmful content. They should cancel the event.”

Keep reading

Here’s What the Useless ‘Mainstream Media’ Was Focused on While a Citizen Journalist Uncovered More Massive Somali Fraud in Minnesota

If you read the Gateway Pundit, by now you are familiar with the story of more massive Somali fraud in Minnesota related to daycare centers, which was exposed by citizen journalist Nick Shirley.

At the time of this writing, the tweet with the video that Shirley published on December 26th has been viewed 56 million times.

Shirley’s work here was good, old-fashioned, shoe leather reporting. He really deserves all of the praise he is getting for this.

What about the so-called mainstream media? This is the job they used to do. What have they been up to for the last few days? Well, in addition to completely ignoring this story, they have been focused on a bunch of other completely pointless stories.

By the way, when we say they’re ignoring the Minnesota story, that is not an exaggeration. None of the outlets below have tweeted a single thing about what Nick Shirley uncovered, despite the enormity of the story.

Over at the Washington Post, they did a story about Trump putting too much Christ into Christmas.

Keep reading