Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a press conference on May 21, 2026, in Minneapolis with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz (right) and law enforcement officials to announce charges against 15 people for allegedly defrauding Medicaid programs of $90 million. (Photo: Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer)
Top Trump administration officials traveled to Minnesota on Thursday to announce 15 federal indictments in what they called the largest Medicaid fraud case ever brought in Minnesota.
(*15*) said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Kennedy was joined by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen and other federal and state law enforcement officials to announce the indictment in federal court in downtown Minneapolis.
Fifteen people are accused of stealing about $90 million from seven Medicaid programs aimed at helping the most vulnerable, including the homeless, autistic children and people with disabilities.
“The defendants used these disabled people like lottery tickets to generate millions of dollars, which the defendants used to develop their properties, purchase luxury vehicles and spend the money on expensive jewelry,” said Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for the National Anti-Fraud Division.
McDonald also announced the expansion of the Midwest Healthcare Strike Force to include additional prosecutors in Minnesota and the creation of a recent Medicaid Strike Force of 15 attorneys working across the country.
The additions come as the Minnesota Department of Justice faces a wave of resignations of career prosecutors, including former Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, who previously oversaw a wide-ranging investigation into social services fraud in Minnesota. The resignation was partly due to the politicization of the Justice Department under President Donald Trump and his handling of Operation Metro Surge.
Officials at the news conference did not provide details such as names or specific charges, although they did provide a blurry photo of one person – Muhammad Omar — who they said was on the run and asked the public for facilitate locating him.
The news conference coincided with a federal judge handing down a nearly 42-year prison sentence for Aimee Bock, the ringleader of what prosecutors called the nation’s largest pandemic fraud scam that bilked $242 million from the federal child nutrition program through her nonprofit Feeding Our Future. Other fraudsters stole tens of millions more from the food program.
The 66 people convicted in the case bought luxury cars, waterfront properties and lavish vacations.
From the first Feeding Our Future charges program announced in 2022Federal and state authorities have uncovered significant fraud and waste in social services programs, prompting Minnesota officials to designate 14 Medicaid programs as “high risk” for fraud.
While most of the Feeding Our Future allegations were brought under the Biden administration, the Trump administration raised the issue as part of Vice President J.D. Vance’s War on Fraud.
This so-called war largely focused on blue states including California, New York and Maine, although federal data suggests that fraud in social services programs is no less common in Republican-led states.
Indeed, Trump has granted pardons to dozens donors and supporters convicted of fraudincluding those who have them stole tens of millions of dollars in Medicaid. McDonald declined to answer a question Bock and other convicted fraudsters in Minnesota can expect the same leniency.
Some of the defendants appeared in a viral video by conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley, who was part of the press corps at Thursday’s press conference, wearing his signature “Quality Learing Center” hoodie, a reference to the infamously misspelled kindergarten sign that Shirley filmed.
Oz asked Shirley to stand up and be recognized during the press conference. In a video shared by Vance and Elon Musk, Shirley claimed to have uncovered over $100 million in fraud in Minnesota’s child welfare program. While the number has not been substantiatedhis video, however, helped draw the Trump administration’s attention to fraud in the state.
Most of the people accused of defrauding government-funded services in recent years in Minnesota have been people of Somali descent, a fact the Trump administration has used to justify brutal attacks on the state’s Somali population, culminating in the incursion of thousands of federal immigration agents here as part of Operation Metro Surge.
McDonald declined to answer questions about the conduct of federal agents during the operation, which resulted in the death of two Americans.
The Trump administration has threatened to cut about $350 million in Medicaid payments to Minnesota in response to fraud, and Oz said Thursday that the state still hasn’t done enough to restore funding even though his own agency approved Minnesota Recovery Action Plan.
State officials say the cuts, called deferrals, threaten health care services for the state’s most vulnerable residents.
This story was originally produced by Minnesota reformerswhich is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes the Ohio Capital Journal and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
