Homeland Safety brokers are in Minneapolis on Monday “conducting an enormous investigation on childcare and different rampant fraud,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem mentioned.
Two DHS officers informed CBS Information that brokers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Safety Investigations department are anticipated to examine over 30 websites within the metropolis on Monday alone.
Noem and DHS posted movies of HSI brokers inspecting a number of websites, together with one which seems to be a smoke store.
HSI has traditionally investigated prison exercise with a world or immigration nexus, akin to little one exploitation, drug smuggling, identification theft and fraud. Below the second Trump administration, many HSI brokers have been assigned to work alongside ICE’s immigration enforcement department to search out and arrest immigrants suspected of being within the U.S. illegally.
Requested whether or not the hassle in Minneapolis is targeted on the suspected fraud there or immigration enforcement, a senior DHS official mentioned, a “little of all the pieces.”
The HSI investigation comes a day after FBI Director Kash Patel referred to as earlier fraud arrests in Minnesota “simply the tip of a really giant iceberg.” He mentioned that the company has “surged personnel and investigative sources” to the state to analyze fraud.
Earlier this month, federal prosecutors mentioned the overall fraud in Minnesota’s Medicaid packages might be as a lot as $9 billion, a determine that Gov. Tim Walz and different state officers have disputed.
This summer season, Walz agreed with a earlier estimate from First Assistant U.S. Lawyer Joe Thompson that fraud throughout all packages, together with the Feeding Our Future scheme, which isn’t a DHS-administered program, might complete $1 billion.
Thompson informed reporters that there are federal investigations into all 14 of the Medicaid packages deemed “excessive threat” for fraud, which are additionally topic to a third-party fee audit.
Greater than 90 folks have been accused, and in lots of circumstances convicted, of bilking tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} from the state, placing Walz’s administration within the scorching seat and drawing assaults from President Trump.
This can be a growing story.
