The Biden-Harris administration turned a blind eye while billions vanished from Minnesota's welfare system.
Democrats dismissed anyone raising concerns as racist.
But a UN weapons inspector revealed one scary fact about Minnesota's Somali fraud that left jaws on the floor.
Al-Shabaab taxes everything entering Somalia
Matt Bryden ran the UN Security Council's monitoring mission for Somalia and Eritrea for four years.
He's spent decades tracking how al-Shabaab — the al-Qaeda affiliate terrorizing East Africa — makes its money.
Bryden told the Daily Mail he's convinced al-Shabaab militants almost certainly got their hands on cash stolen from Minnesota's pandemic-era welfare programs.
"Al-Shabaab taxes everything it can, including remittance companies," Bryden explained.¹
They don't care where money comes from or who receives it.
They tax the business itself — not the individual transaction.
That means when Minnesota fraudsters wired stolen welfare dollars back to Somalia through hawala networks, al-Shabaab took its cut.
Minnesota's fraud isn't just big — it's astronomical.
$300 million stolen from a single federal meals program.²
Prosecutors think the real number across all the schemes? Over $1 billion.
More than 50 fraudsters already convicted, with dozens more waiting for trial.
And here's the kicker: court filings show they wired stolen cash straight back to Somalia or bought up real estate across East Africa.
How the money reached terrorists
Bryden explained that al-Shabaab operates like a shadow government with ruthless efficiency.
"You're looking at an organization that raises about $150 million to $200 million a year," he said.³ "Most of that is inland revenue."
Tax collectors operate across central and southern Somalia — areas they control.
They shake down farmers, truckers, importers, shopkeepers — anyone trying to make a living.
They've developed an especially lucrative grip on money-remittance businesses.
The network is known as hawala — an informal, trust-based system that sends roughly $1.5 billion a year from overseas Somalis to families back home.
It's fast, cheap, and reliable.
It's also the perfect target for al-Shabaab.
"Al-Shabaab makes it their business to know what volume a business moves in a month, and they'll tax the profits," Bryden explained.⁴ "It doesn't matter where the money came from."
Mogadishu is supposed to be under government control.
The militants operate there too.
They've infiltrated the city's business district and impose taxes through threats, intimidation, and selective violence.
"Even much of the aid money that goes into Somalia gets taxed at some point," Bryden said.⁵ "Not because it's aid money, but because it moves through local contractors who are required to pay tax to al-Shabaab or suffer the consequences."
Western NGOs, UN agencies, even the US military — if they use Somali security guards, cleaners, food suppliers or construction crews, al-Shabaab demands a cut.
Against that backdrop, stolen Minnesota money slipping through untouched?
Not a chance.
Democrats let it happen while calling critics racist
The Minnesota case centers on Feeding Our Future — a nonprofit that became a criminal enterprise.
Founder Aimee Bock and ringleader Abdiaziz Shafii Farah got convicted earlier this year.
They invented children who didn't exist.
Forged meal counts for kids who were never fed.
Faked rosters to tap federal pandemic dollars meant for vulnerable children.
And Democrats running Minnesota? They looked the other way.
But the fraud didn't stop there.
Minnesota's autism services program exploded from $6 million in 2018 to nearly $192 million in 2024.⁶
That's a 3,000% increase in six years.
The Housing Stabilization Services program? Budgeted at $2.6 million per year, it ballooned to $104 million in 2024.
Auditors flagged the problems.
Whistleblowers raised alarms.
But anyone who questioned what was happening got smeared as racist.
That shut down the conversation while billions vanished into thin air.
As the FBI closed in, some suspects fled.
Abdikerm Eidleh — a former Feeding Our Future employee accused of liaising with fake meal providers and pocketing kickbacks — slipped out of the country in late 2022 and resurfaced in Somalia.
But Bryden says tracking him down will be fiendishly difficult.
Somali society isn't built around Western-style institutions — it's built around clan lineage.
"The clan is like a PO box," Bryden said.⁷ "You can easily trace someone through their clan."
But in a country shattered by war, without functioning bureaucracies or a reliable address system, that's only the first step.
Even if his clan is identified, intermediaries would be needed to approach elders, relatives or rivals.
Cooperation isn't guaranteed.
Others might come forward only if they "have an axe to grind."
The billion-dollar question nobody wants to answer
Here's what Democrats don't want you thinking about.
This wasn't some sophisticated operation that fooled everybody.
Feeding Our Future went from handling $3.4 million in 2019 to $200 million in 2021 — a fifty-nine fold increase in two years.
You think Minnesota's Department of Education didn't notice?
A 2024 audit found they "failed to act on warning signs" even as the money gushed out the door.
Tim Walz ran Minnesota through all of this.
He's now trying to distance himself, saying he'd "welcome an investigation" if money reached terrorists.
Too late for that, Governor.
The investigation Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched on December 1 will determine exactly how much Minnesota taxpayer money ended up funding al-Shabaab "under the feckless mismanagement of the Biden Administration and Governor Tim Walz."⁸
Trump didn't pull punches the next day.
He called Somali immigrants who defrauded the system "garbage" who had "ripped off" the state.
"When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but b****, we don't want them in our country," Trump said.⁹ "Let them go back to where they came from and fix it."
Ilhan Omar rushed to defend her Somali constituents.
She's "pretty confident" the terrorism link is false.
"If there was a linkage in the money that they have stolen going to terrorism, then that is a failure of the FBI and our court system in not figuring that out," Omar told CBS News.¹⁰
That's rich coming from someone who represents the district where this fraud flourished.
Omar wants to blame federal law enforcement for not catching something her own constituents were doing under her watch.
But Matt Bryden — the UN weapons inspector who spent four years tracking al-Shabaab's money — says the link isn't just probable.
It's inevitable.
The mechanics of Somalia's economy guarantee that al-Shabaab got its cut.
The only questions left: How much did they get, and who knew it was happening?
Because here's what we know for certain: Democrats spent years attacking anyone who raised concerns about this fraud as racist.
They prioritized political correctness over protecting taxpayer dollars.
And now Americans are learning their welfare money may have funded the same terrorists Trump just designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
That's not a failure of the FBI.
That's Democrats choosing to let it happen rather than risk being called names.
¹ James Reinl, "UN sleuth reveals the secret money trail from Minnesota's $1 billion Somali fraud ring," Daily Mail, December 9, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Corin Hoggard, "Fraud in Minnesota: Detailing the nearly $1 billion in schemes," FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, December 8, 2025.
⁷ James Reinl, "UN sleuth reveals the secret money trail from Minnesota's $1 billion Somali fraud ring," Daily Mail, December 9, 2025.
⁸ Peter Pinedo, "Treasury Secretary launches probe into Minnesota tax dollars allegedly funding Al-Shabaab terrorists," Fox News, December 2, 2025.
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ Steve Karnowski, "Trump's attacks on Minnesota's Somali community cast a spotlight on fraud cases," ABC News, December 9, 2025.