Former TSA agent: Law enforcement regularly documented Somalis with cash jammed in suitcases

by WorldTribune Staff, December 11, 2025 Real World News

Somali men repeatedly flew out of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport with luggage jammed with cash, a former TSA agent said.

Along with carrying suitcases packed with cash, whistleblower Liz Jaksa said that in one case a Somali man was carrying a bag filled with new passports.

Jaksa told investigative journalist Liz Collin that she witnessed these incidents regularly during her five years at the airport, from 2016 to 2021.

“The most shocking is exactly that I saw suitcases filled with millions of dollars of cash, and the couriers were always Somali men traveling in pairs, and they got through the checkpoint. It just really, absolutely blew my mind. The first time you open a suitcase and you see millions of dollars of cash,” Jaksa said.

Law enforcement routinely documented the couriers, Jaksa said:

“And typically, what would happen is a Leo or a law enforcement officer would come check their credentials. I don’t know what kind of questions they asked them, but their IDs were always documented, and probably their plane tickets as well. So so there is a trail of that out there, and I would believe, with all the cameras at the airport, that if they started there, they could probably find each and every individual that brought money through the checkpoint.”

Jaksa said the cash-filled suitcases were seen at the airport “every week. And the M.O. was always two Somalian men traveling in pairs. Sometimes they both had suitcases. And so the process was, as a TSA agent, we would pull the bag, and then we’d bring them to a private screening room, and we would open the suitcase and make sure that that’s all it was, was stacks of cash and a Leo would come and maybe question them. And for sure, take a picture of their identification, and I’m assuming their plane ticket, I’m not sure. So there is a trail out there between that. I mean, it has to be documented somewhere. And all the cameras in the airport, I would imagine, if they’d like to find all this cash, they should start at the airport, because in the five years I was there, I believe a billion dollars went through the airport.”

Jaksa added: “There was another instance, again, a Somali man that had a carry on luggage filled with brand new passports, and he was allowed to get through the checkpoint. So where he went with those passports is anybody’s guess.”

Federal prosecutors have convicted 61 people in the massive Minnesota fraud scheme that involved Somali immigrants embezzling more than $1 billion from taxpayers.

CBS News reported on Thursday that the Somalis used the pilfered funds to buy luxury cars and private villas and also sent millions of dollars overseas via wire transfers.

At the sentencing of a defendant who used taxpayer funds for cars and the Maldives vacation, 24-year-old Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel admonished him, saying: “Where others saw a crisis and rushed to help, you saw money and rushed to steal.” He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $48 million in restitution for his role in the fraud scheme.

Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 36, who was sentenced to 28 years in prison last month for his role in the scheme, made six separate wire transfers worth more than $1 million to banks in China between February and July 2021, according to records reviewed by CBS News.

Farah owned and operated Empire Cuisine and Market, a Minnesota restaurant that contracted with the nonprofit Feeding Our Future to cook and provide meals to children. Prosecutors say he and his co-defendants billed the state for $47 million, claiming to have served 18 million meals at more than 30 locations — but they didn’t distribute a single meal.

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