Federal law enforcement investigating another potentially massive fraud scheme in Minnesota.
It involves the state's Medicaid-funded Housing Stabilization Services program, which is tasked with helping find and maintain housing for older adults and people with disabilities, including substance use disorder and mental illness.
Investigators executed searched warrants on five Twin Cities providers at eight locations who they say fraudulently claimed to provide many hours of services when they hadn't.
In a statement, temporary Department of Human Services Commissioner Shireen Ghandi says DHS has open investigations into all of the five providers targeted, and DHS previously stopped payments to three of the providers.
Ghandi adds that DHS uses all of the tools at its disposal to detect and prevent Medicaid fraud and they will continue to work with law enforcement to hold bad actors accountable.
In a statement, acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson says Minnesota has a fraud problem — and not a small one.
"For too long organized fraud schemes like this have flourished in plain sight, draining public resources dry," says Thompson.
He calls the warrants another step in a much bigger reckoning.