Federal prosecutors on Thursday filed a new round of fraud charges against providers of Medicaid-funded programs administered by the state of Minnesota — and gave yet another hint at the scale of theft taking place under the watch of state agencies.
At a news conference announcing charges against six individuals who allegedly defrauded the state of more than $10 million in various schemes, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said he believed “a significant amount” of the $18 billion paid out by 14 “high–risk” Medicaid-funded programs since 2018 was lost to fraud — possibly half or more.
“Fraud is not small. It isn’t isolated. The magnitude cannot be overstated,” he said. “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes; it’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”
New charges filed Thursday included cases against one person accused of defrauding state autism services and five more individuals tied to the Housing Stabilization Services program, which helped people with disabilities and addiction issues at risk of homelessness pay for housing. Seven were charged in September.
‘Fraud tourism’
Thompson described one of the new housing stabilization cases as an instance of “fraud tourism,” where two defendants from Philadelphia who had no connections to Minnesota were drawn to the program after hearing it was “easy money.”
Anthony Waddell Jefferson, 37, and Lester Brown,53, established a business in Minnesota to collect Medicaid payments from the Department of Human Services, though neither lived in the state, according to federal prosecutors. Both are accused of collecting $3.5 million for services never provided and are charged with wire fraud.
The Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s office also announced new wire fraud charges against Hassan Ahmed Hussein, 28, and Ahmed Abdirashid Mohamed, 27. The pair allegedly claimed $750,000 for services through their company, Pristine Health, LLC, but only used a fraction for services, prosecutors allege.
Hussein and Mohamed are accused of using the money to finance their travels to London, Sydney, Dubai, Istanbul and several locations in Saudi Arabia.
Kaamil Omar Sallah, 26, was charged with wire fraud for allegedly making more than $1.4 million in fraudulent claims through his company SafeLodgings, $1.3 million of which he received between March 2023 and August 2025.
Sallah used some of the money to obtain $150,000 in cryptocurrency. Sallah fled the country in November after being served a subpoena for his company records by a grand jury, Thompson said.
Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, age 27, is accused of stealing through the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention benefit, a program meant to support people under 21 with autism.
Yussuf, of St. Cloud, is accused of using his company, Star Autism Center, to submit millions in inflated and fraudulent claims for services never provided.
Cash kickback payments
Federal prosecutors allege that Yussuf and partners would recruit children and seek out autism diagnoses and approach parents with offers of cash kickback payments for enrolling their children in the program.
In all, Star Autism claimed more than $6 million. Prosecutors allege Yussuf used $100,000 to purchase a Freightliner semi-truck and sent $200,000 to Kenya.
The first autism services defendant, Asha Farhan Hassan, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud on Thursday for her role in a $14 million fraud scheme where she received $465,000.
Prosecutors also announced an investigation into a new fraud scheme. On Thursday morning, authorities served a search warrant on Ultimate Home Health Services, a Bloomington-based provider of “Integrated Community Services.”
The Medicaid-funded program helps people with disabilities live in a home rather than an assisted living facility, and it’s one of the 14 the state has identified as “high-risk.”
‘Explosive growth’
Ultimate Home Health Services claimed more than $1.1 million in reimbursements between June 2024 and August 2025 and claimed services for 13 clients, including multiple clients who did not get services, according to the warrant.
One of the clients was a person with “severe mental illness” who was found dead in the apartment, according to the warrant. Ultimate Home Health claimed it was providing 12 hours of service a day, though the client’s mother, who visited him once a week, said that was not true, the warrant said.
Integrated Community Services has seen “explosive growth” since it started in 2021, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. When the program began in 2021, it paid out $4.6 million. By 2024, it paid out $170 million in just one year. The state has paid out more than $400 million in Medicaid reimbursements since the program started, according to prosecutors.
The pattern resembles other Medicaid-funded state programs that have seen significant fraud.
For instance, Housing Stabilization Services was projected to cost $2.6 million a year when it started. By 2024, it was paying out more than $105 million. A dozen now face federal charges in connection with fraud in that program, and more charges are likely to come.
Thompson said he believed the scale and type of fraud occurring in Minnesota was unique, and that it had been “allowed to go on far too long,” and that the state had not done a good job of overseeing Medicaid programs.
“There’s lots of levels of responsibility. There’s criminal culpability, obviously and then there’s other accountability,” he said. “I think all of us, as a state, have to grapple with that and that’s not just prosecutors and law enforcement agents but regulators and politicians and news media, community leaders … I think that process, that conversation is starting to happen.”
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