by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News May 21, 2026

Criminal charges have been field against 15 individuals in Minnesota in a massive public fraud schemes, the Justice Department announced on Thursday.

The cases involve taxpayer funds the Justice Department alleges were stolen from Medicaid, homeless housing, and autism programs in Minnesota.

Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, said the cases involve seven Minnesota-run Medicaid programs that prosecutors say were “systematically pilfered by fraudsters” who treated taxpayer-funded services as “their personal piggy bank.”

“Let me be clear upfront about something: This is not the end of our work in Minnesota,” McDonald said. “This is the beginning of our work in Minnesota. The fraud here in Minnesota is shocking.”

McDonald pointed to Minnesota’s housing stabilization services program, which was designed to help homeless residents find and keep housing, as one of the starkest examples. The program was initially estimated in 2020 to cost about $2.5 million per year, but ballooned to more than $104 million by 2024, which McDonald attributed to fraud.

“One of the programs has been completely shut down because there’s no money left: It’s all gone,” McDonald said, adding that the program was shut down in 2025 and “these services no longer exist for these vulnerable homeless populations.”

Prosecutors also cited what they described as suspicious growth in other taxpayer-funded programs, including an autism program that McDonald said rose from $600,000 in costs six years ago to more than $400 million.

“That number is not driven by supply and demand,” he said. “It is not driven by healthcare or charity. It is fraud.”

Public fraud in Minnesota became a national issue in the wake of viral reporting from independent journalist Nick Shirley, who documented a litany of allegedly fraudulent daycare facilities receiving public support, despite limited evidence of any legitimate activity.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer accused Minnesota’s top Democrat leaders of enabling the massive fraud schemes and vowed new reforms alongside the Trump Administration to stop taxpayer dollars from flowing to criminals.

“The Trump Administration is taking action to hold accountable criminals who are defrauding the American people and stealing from our nation’s most vulnerable,” Comer said. “Our investigation into rampant fraud in Minnesota revealed that Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were aware of widespread fraud in social service programs, lied about their knowledge of the fraud, and retaliated against employees who dared to raise concerns.

“Instead of protecting vulnerable Americans, they handed over billions in taxpayer dollars to fraudsters and threw their own state employees under the bus,” he added.

Comer said the House Oversight Committee has put forward legislation to address fraud in federal programs by preventing it before it happens.

“I’ve introduced the Stopping Fraudulent Payments Act, which contains sweeping reforms that will stop fraudulent payments before they go out the door to ensure critical taxpayer-funded programs work as intended,” he said. “Alongside the Trump Administration, the Oversight Committee will continue to fulfill its responsibility to crack down on fraud and hold those who steal taxpayer dollars accountable.”

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  DOJ charges 15 individuals in massive Minnesota alleged fraud scheme; Comer says Walz and Ellison were aware, WorldTribune.com