Four Minnesota residents have been charged in an alleged $41 million healthcare fraud scheme, federal officials announced on Friday, October 30, 2026, at a high-profile press conference in St. Cloud. The Minnesota fraud charges, unveiled by FBI Director Kash Patel alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, mark the latest escalation in the Trump administration's self-declared "War on Fraud" in a state that has become the national centre of the debate over taxpayer-funded programme abuse.
According to Patel, FBI agents in Minneapolis charged the four defendants on Thursday after executing 17 search warrants in a single day, feeding into a 26-count indictment. The announcement came at the same St. Cloud event that Vice President JD Vance, who leads the administration's fraud task force, had been scheduled to headline before cancelling the night before — an absence officials did not explain, but one that did little to blunt the message: Minnesota is now the front line of the federal fraud crackdown.
Patel told reporters that the investigation moved fast and visibly. "Just yesterday, FBI Minneapolis and our partners executed 17 search warrants in a single day to combine into a 26-count indictment," he said. "Three of those search warrants were at a childcare center. Two of those search warrants were at the residences of the owners of those centers and two more of those search warrants were on the Early Intensive Development and Behavioral Unit here in Minnesota."
The four defendants and their alleged roles, as described by Patel, are: Feisal Elmi, of Aspen Associates, charged with 11 counts of healthcare fraud; Jama Mohamod, of American Home Healthcare, charged with six counts of healthcare fraud; Faiza Ahmed, of Home Sweet Home, charged with eight counts of healthcare fraud; and Habiba Mohamed, of Smart Therapy, charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Between them, Patel said, they intended to defraud people of more than $41 million.
The charges were announced alongside a set of new federal tools aimed at following the money. Bessent said the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, working with the White House Task Force on Eliminating Fraud, had filed notices with financial institutions on identifying suspicious overseas activity that could signal fraud. "FinCEN issued a geographic targeting order to trace criminal networks that divert funds overseas and ensure that taxpayer dollars go to the American people, not terror groups like al-Shabab," Bessent said. "We have ongoing investigations at home and abroad into al-Shabab, its networks and enablers."
The FinCEN notice included red flags around nonprofit organisations, including a customer with "a name similar to an existing or well-known NPO but does not appear to have any affiliation with it" and "a customer that is an NPO openly supports terrorist or criminal activity or operations." Bessent declined to discuss ongoing investigations in detail, but added: "We're not going to talk about ongoing investigations, but the fact that we are here should make you think ... that the task force is very interested in what's going on in this area."
Fraud has dominated Minnesota headlines since 2025, when convictions began rolling in for a $250 million pandemic-era fraud scheme — the largest case of its kind brought by the Department of Justice. In March of that year, a jury convicted multiple Minnesotans of collecting money through a federal child nutrition programme intended to hand out meals to children. Defendants in the case, first brought in September 2022, were charged over about 91 million meals that were never served, equating to nearly $250 million.
Two of those charged — out of 70 people involved in the case — were nonprofit Feeding Our Future founder and executive director Aimee Bock and Minneapolis-based Safari Restaurant owner Salim Said. Prosecutors said restaurant owners bribed Feeding Our Future employees to sponsor sham distribution sites, then spent the funds on luxury cars, houses, jewellery and resort property abroad. Five people were later charged with trying to bribe a juror with $120,000.
The pattern has continued into 2026. In February, Philadelphia men Anthony Waddell Jefferson, 37, and Lester Brown, 53, were convicted of defrauding Minnesota's Housing Stabilization Services programme of about $3.5 million, using AI to fabricate records and falsely claiming to serve about 230 Medicaid beneficiaries. In December 2025, former Assistant US Attorney Joe Thompson pointed to 14 "high-risk" state-run Medicaid programmes that billed about $18 billion between 2018 and the end of 2025 — and said "half or more" of that money could be fraudulent.
In March, the owner of St. Cloud-based Star Autism Center LLC, Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, 27, pleaded guilty to receiving more than $6 million in reimbursed funds from public assistance programmes. Prosecutors said he used more than $100,000 to buy a Freightliner semi truck and sent more than $200,000 to Kenya. And in September, Attorney General Keith Ellison charged nine people over $3 million in fraudulent Medical Assistance claims. On October 29, his Medicaid Fraud Control Unit joined HHS Inspector General agents and the FBI in raiding two Twin Cities autism centres, Iska Inc. and Bright Horizon Therapy Center, both now under investigation.
The St. Cloud announcement was about more than one indictment. Bessent highlighted a new $25 million fraud whistleblower incentive programme, announced on October 20, which offers up to $30,000 in rewards to anyone who submits a fraud-related tip that leads to a conviction. The administration is betting that insiders — employees, competitors and neighbours of suspect providers — will do what audits missed.
Oz, meanwhile, announced that CMS signed a memorandum of understanding with Treasury earlier in October to track where the money goes. "I'm excited to announce that earlier this month, CMS signed a memorandum of understanding with Treasury that will help figure out who the real villains are to help us track where the money is going," Oz said. "It's a formal cooperation between our agencies." Under the deal, Treasury forensic accountants will have access to FinCEN data and will be allowed to cross-reference enrolment records, banking details and Office of Inspector General hotline tips, while the partnership also brings Treasury closer to IRS enforcement workers.
"These criminals, they don't steal the money without putting it somewhere," Oz said. "They don't declare that money, because if you steal the money, you're not paying your taxes, but you do sign your tax return. So, we don't have to wait for all the things that normally we have to to fulfill in order to take action."
Oz used the St. Cloud stage to hammer home the human cost of the fraud, pointing to the October 7 conviction of Lake Elmo woman Sharmaine Meadows, who runs the St. Paul-based agency Cradle of Love, on three counts of healthcare fraud claiming about $3.6 million. "Minnesota shut the program down," Oz said. "I'm going to say that again. This housing stabilization program, which everyone on this stage thinks has merit, was shut down because of fraudsters like Sharmaine Meadows. Now, she billed more hours than possible. She hired untrained individuals overseas. She did unspeakable things that broke the very integrity of this valuable program."
Meadows' conduct, which Oz said stretched over about five years from August 2020 to October 2025, is now the administration's exhibit A for continuous revalidation of providers. "Revalidation asks," Oz said, "'Are you able and eligible to provide the services?' and 'to be eligible, by the way, you can't have been convicted as a felon.' 'You must be licensed in the state here in Minnesota, in this case to own a business.' 'You've got to pass inspections.' 'You have to avoid being fired from Medicare or Medicaid in the past; you cannot have been excluded from the programs.'" Oz said one in three providers in the 14 "high-risk" categories were not able to be revalidated.
The $41 million case matters for three reasons. First, it is money: every dollar allegedly stolen from healthcare programmes is a dollar not spent on children with autism, on housing stabilisation or on meals for low-income families — the very services at the heart of the Minnesota cases. Second, it is a test of the administration's "War on Fraud" model, which pairs headline-grabbing raids and indictments with quieter plumbing — FinCEN orders, Treasury-CMS data sharing and whistleblower rewards — designed to make the next fraud harder to hide. Third, it is political: with the November 3 midterms days away, fraud in Minnesota has become a national campaign issue, invoked by both parties as evidence about how government money is policed.
The scale of the underlying problem is what makes the case resonate beyond Minnesota. If Thompson's estimate is right and half or more of the $18 billion billed by the 14 high-risk programmes was fraudulent, the losses would dwarf the $250 million Feeding Our Future case many times over. Even the administration's own revalidation figures — one in three providers in those categories unable to be revalidated — suggest a system in which oversight failed for years before enforcement arrived.
The four defendants will now move through the federal court process, where prosecutors must prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty, and no trial dates or plea details were announced at the St. Cloud event. Further charges are possible: Bessent's reference to ongoing investigations "at home and abroad" and the FinCEN order's focus on overseas money trails suggest investigators are still following leads from the 17 search warrants.
Separately, the Twin Cities autism centre raids of October 29 remain active investigations, and the administration's whistleblower programme and Treasury-CMS data-sharing deal are only weeks old. The next public milestones are likely to be court appearances in the $41 million case and any further indictments the task force brings before — or after — the November 3 midterms.
Feisal Elmi of Aspen Associates (11 counts of healthcare fraud), Jama Mohamod of American Home Healthcare (six counts), Faiza Ahmed of Home Sweet Home (eight counts) and Habiba Mohamed of Smart Therapy (one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States).
Prosecutors say the four defendants intended to defraud people of more than $41 million. The case was announced after FBI Minneapolis executed 17 search warrants in a single day, producing a 26-count indictment.
It is a Treasury order requiring financial institutions to flag suspicious activity, in this case to trace criminal networks that divert taxpayer funds overseas, including to networks linked to the militant group al-Shabab.
Minnesota has seen a string of major cases, including the $250 million Feeding Our Future pandemic scheme, the $3.5 million Housing Stabilization Services convictions, the $6 million Star Autism Center case and 14 "high-risk" Medicaid programmes worth about $18 billion.
The administration's fraud whistleblower incentive programme, announced October 20, offers up to $30,000 in rewards for fraud-related tips that lead to a conviction, and tips can also go to the HHS Office of Inspector General hotline.
Related coverage: Minnesota autism raids: FBI searches Twin Cities centres in Medicaid fraud probe and Salim Said's 30-year sentence in the $250 million Minnesota food fraud case.
Sources: St. Cloud Times reporting from the October 30, 2026 St. Cloud press conference; FBI Director Kash Patel; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz; Minnesota Attorney General's Office; US Department of Justice.
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