(The Center Square) – At least 98 people have been charged, including 85 Somalians, for their role in an alleged fraud scheme targeting 14 high-risk Medicaid-funded services through Minnesota Department of Human Services programs, Attorney General Pam Bondi said. Sixty have already been found guilty, with some pleading guilty this month.
In October, Gov. Tim Walz shut down all 14 programs and ordered a third-party audit of Medicaid billing at DHS. Earlier this month, he appointed a new director to implement a statewide fraud prevention program.
Also earlier this month, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson announced that six additional defendants had been charged with defrauding DHS programs created to help disabled children and adults, including those diagnosed with autism. This was part of an extensive and ongoing investigation.
Thompson told reporters at a news conference that it was possible that “half or more” of the $18 billion billed to 14 programs since 2018 are fraudulent. “The fraud is not small, it isn’t isolated. The magnitude cannot be overstated. What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes, it’s a staggering, industrial-scale fraud,” he said.
Thompson highlighted three programs plagued with fraud for years: Housing Stabilization Services (HSS), Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention Autism (EIDBI) and Integrated Community Services (ICS).
HSS was created to provide housing assistance for the disabled, seniors, the mentally ill and those with substance abuse. In July 2020, Minnesota was the first state to offer Medicaid coverage for subsidized housing through HSS. “By design, the HSS Program had low barriers to entry and minimal records requirements for reimbursement that combined to make the Program susceptible to fraud,” the DOJ says.
In 2021, HSS paid more than $21 million in claims; it paid $42 million in 2022, $74 million in 2023, $104 million in 2024 and $61 million in the first six months of 2025, according to state records. In August, Minnesota’s DHS announced it was shutting down HSS after its Office of Inspector General “moved to terminate the HSS program due to large-scale fraud found by OIG’s data analysis and investigatory work. The program ended Oct. 31, 2025.”
EIDBI was created to provide Medicaid-funded, medically necessary services to individuals under age 21 who’ve been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
ICS was created to assist those who can’t live alone but don’t live in assisted living by paying for qualified individuals to help with daily tasks. In 2021, Minnesota began offering Medicaid coverage for ICS, allowing providers to bill up to 24 hours a day. Claims data shows Medicaid paid more than $400 million for ICS services since 2021.
The EIDBI Autism Fraud Scheme
Somalis the DOJ charged this month include Asha Farhan Hassan, who already pleaded guilty, and Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, the president and CEO of Star Autism Center LLC. Yussuf is accused of employing teenage relatives with “no formal education beyond high school and no training or certifications related to the treatment of autism” to provide “autism services” to children who don’t have autism, authorities allege. The children were recruited from the Somali community whose parents received “monthly cash kickback payments” for enrolling “their children to receive EIDBI services through Star Autism,” the complaint alleges. Kickback amounts were contingent on authorized services, “the higher the authorization amount, the higher the kickback,” the complaint states.
Star Autism received more than $6 million in fraudulent EIDBI reimbursements from DHS and UCare after submitting claims “for services that were not actually provided,” the complaint alleges. The kickbacks “paid to parents were financed through Star Autism’s fraudulent billings to Medicaid,” the complaint alleges. Yussuf “also sent more than $200,000 in fraud proceeds to Kenya.”
Hassan was previously charged with participating in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, for which she received $465,000, the DOJ said. In 2022, more than 40 were people indicted for stealing funds designated to feed children during the COVID-era lockdowns.
The Housing Stabilization Services Fraud Scheme
Somalis Hassan Ahmed Hussein and Ahmed Abdirashid Mohamed, owners of Pristine Health LLC in St. Paul, were also charged this month with wire fraud. As HSS providers, they were supposed to provide housing consulting and transitioning services to qualifying people in need. Instead, they submitted false claims and spent the fraudulent “proceeds on themselves and to fund personal travel, including to London, Sydney, Dubai, Istanbul, and several destinations in Saudi Arabia” the DOJ alleges.
Somali Kaamil Omar Sallah, the owner of SafeLodgings, Inc., was also charged this month with wire fraud. He submitted fraudulent bills, including double billing, totaling more than 3,600 billable service hours, and received $1.3 million in fraudulent claims, the DOJ alleges. In November, he was subpoenaed by a grand jury and fled the country.
The Integrated Community Supports (ICS) Fraud Scheme
A search warrant was issued this month for Ultimate Home Health Services LLC, the DOJ said. According to state DHS records, it submitted more than $1.1 million worth of ICS claims in one year for 13 clients, billing Medicaid for services it didn’t provide, the DOJ alleges. In one case, it claimed to provide ICS services to one person for more than 440 days. In another, a severely mentally ill person was found dead in his apartment while Ultimate Home Health was billing Medicaid claiming he was receiving ICS services at the time of his death, the DOJ alleges.
