Several top U.S. officials are in Minneapolis announcing about “major law enforcement action involving fraud” in the state.
"Today, we are announcing criminal charges against 15 defendants in Minnesota for fraud schemes that targeted over $90 million in taxpayer dollars," said Colin McDonald who is with the U.S Justice Department.
McDonald went onto to say they were going to create a Healthcare Fraud Midwest Strike Force to further their investigations and prosecutions.
"The fraud here in Minnesota is shocking," McDonald added. "Our cases today involve seven different state-managed Medicaid programs that have been systematically pilfered by fraudsters, who treated Minnesota-run programs as their personal piggy bank."
McDonald also noted that the fraud they are investigating isn't just from the past few years, going back to the COVID pandemic. He says it is ongoing, and called the fraudsters "agnostic," taking advantage of any program they felt was vulnerable.
He says the department is deploying 15 newly hired, dedicated prosecutors to hotspot areas nationwide and continues to seek public assistance to locate the remaining fugitives.
"And now my message to the fraudsters is this: eat, drink and be merry today, because your days of frolicking and freedom are numbered," McDonald warned. "We are doing everything we can to find you, and when we do, we will prosecute you. And we will claw back every dollar you have stolen from the American people."
U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, Daniel Rosen, also says the fraud runs much deeper than the well publicized fraud stemming from Feeding Our Future.
"The truth is Feeding Our Future is only a start, and we believe it's only a small fraction of the fraud that is actually ongoing here in the state of Minnesota," Rosen noted.
Already on Thursday, a judge handed down an extraordinary prison sentence — nearly 42 years — to the former leader of a Feeding Our Future, convicted in the staggering $250 million fraud case which had claimed it helped provide millions of meals to children in need during the pandemic.
This is a developing story. Stay with 830 WCCO and wccoradio.com for further updates.
