How Somali Money From Minnesota Fraud Ended In Funding Nairobi Real Estate Boom, Al Shabaab Attracting Trump’s Wrath

The money trail starts in Minneapolis, winds through welfare offices in Minnesota, crosses the Atlantic in bulk cash shipments, and ends in two places that should alarm anyone paying attention: the sprawling apartment blocks of Nairobi’s Kilimani and Lavington estates, and the training camps of Al-Shabaab terrorists in the Somali wilderness.

What investigators are calling one of the largest coordinated fraud schemes in American history has Kenyan fingerprints all over it.

And last Friday, President Donald Trump made clear that his patience with the situation has run out.

In an unprecedented move, he terminated deportation protections for Somalis in Minnesota, citing what he called a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity under Governor Tim Walz.

“I am, as President of the United States, hereby terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status program for Somalis in Minnesota,” Trump posted on Truth Social, adding that “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing.”

The presidential action follows a damning investigation by the Manhattan Institute that revealed federal counterterrorism sources have confirmed millions of dollars in stolen welfare funds were sent to Somalia, where they ended up in the hands of Al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda linked terror group responsible for attacks across East Africa, including the Westgate Mall massacre.

The numbers tell a staggering story.

Nearly 250 million dollars stolen from the Feeding Our Future program.

Autism services claims in Minnesota that exploded from 3 million dollars in 2018 to 399 million dollars in 2023.

Housing stabilization programs designed to cost 2.6 million annually hemorrhaging over 100 million dollars by 2025.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson, who has been prosecuting these cases, called the depth of fraud in Minnesota breathtaking.

And a significant portion of that money has been flowing to Kenya.

The scheme worked with brazen simplicity.

Fraudsters set up phantom daycare centers claiming to serve millions of meals to non-existent children.

They enrolled kids without autism diagnoses into fraudulent therapy programs, paying parents cash kickbacks of up to 1,500 dollars monthly. They billed Medicaid for services never rendered, using unqualified relatives as fake therapists.

When authorities raised questions, the response was predictable.

Discrimination lawsuits were filed. Officials were accused of racial bias. Programs noted they catered to “foreign nationals,” and progressive politicians, anxious about being labeled racist, retreated.

The Kenyan connection became undeniable with the indictment of Ahmednaji Maalim Aftin Sheikh, a 28-year-old Kenyan national who became the 74th defendant in the Feeding Our Future case last September.

Court documents reveal his brother, Abdiaziz Farah, now serving 28 years in federal prison, sent him text messages with photos of 138,000 dollars in cash. “You are gonna be the richest 25 year old InshaAllah,” one message read, alongside images of banker’s boxes stuffed with 270,000 dollars marked as “family support.”

Sheikh invested his share in Kenyan real estate. An apartment near Nairobi National Park. Land parcels in Mandera on the Somali border. A stake in a Kenyan real estate company.

All purchased through shell companies designed to obscure the money’s origins.

He is not alone.

Asha Farhan Hassan, another Somali-Kenyan, faces charges for allegedly stealing 14 million dollars from autism programs and 465,000 dollars from child nutrition schemes.

Prosecutors say she used part of the proceeds to purchase luxury properties in Nairobi while paying parents kickbacks to keep their children enrolled in her Minneapolis clinic.

Real estate agents in Nairobi’s upmarket neighborhoods have noticed the pattern. Over the past five years, there has been a marked increase in cash purchases by Somali-Kenyan buyers. They arrive with foreign currency, bypassing formal banking channels.

They pay premium prices without negotiation. Meanwhile, ordinary Kenyans find themselves increasingly priced out of the market.

But the real estate investments represent only part of the story.

According to multiple federal law enforcement sources, significant amounts of stolen welfare funds have been flowing to Al-Shabaab through informal money transfer networks called hawalas.

Glenn Kerns, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who spent 14 years on a federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, investigated a sophisticated operation moving 20 million dollars abroad in a single year.

When Kerns expanded his investigation to Minnesota, he discovered something troubling. “All these Somalis sending out money are on DHS benefits,” he said. “How does that make sense? We had good sources tell us: this is welfare fraud.”

His sources in Somalia confirmed that Al-Shabaab takes a cut of transactions flowing through the hawala networks.

“For every dollar that is transferred from the Twin Cities back to Somalia, Al-Shabaab is taking a cut of it,” a former Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force official told investigators.

Somalia received 1.7 billion dollars in remittances in 2023 alone, more than the Somali government’s entire annual budget.

An estimated 40 percent of Somali households depend on these remittances.

While the vast majority of these transfers are legitimate, law enforcement sources say the sheer volume of money moving through informal channels has created opportunities for criminal enterprises to exploit.

Kenya sits at the center of this financial web, yet Kenyan authorities have launched no parallel investigations.

Despite evidence in American court documents identifying specific properties and shell companies, despite clear trails showing how stolen funds became Nairobi real estate, the Asset Recovery Agency, Financial Reporting Centre, and Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission have remained largely silent.

Kenya’s inclusion on the Financial Action Task Force gray list for money laundering deficiencies reflects these systemic failures.

The real estate sector has become a primary vehicle for money laundering because property transactions, especially cash deals, offer anonymity that bank transfers do not.

Trump’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in Minnesota marks a dramatic escalation.

The TPS program had allowed Somali nationals temporary legal status to live and work in the United States because of dangerous conditions in Somalia.

The immediate termination, announced without the usual advance notice or transition period, signals the administration’s view of the fraud as a national security threat.

Acting U.S. Attorney Thompson has made clear these prosecutions are just beginning. “From Feeding Our Future to Housing Stabilization Services and now Autism Services, these massive fraud schemes form a web that has stolen billions of dollars in taxpayer money,” Thompson said. “Each case we bring exposes another strand of this network.”

As of September, 56 defendants had pleaded guilty in the Feeding Our Future case alone, with 74 individuals now indicted.

Thompson noted that many perpetrators operated multiple fraudulent companies billing various Medicaid programs simultaneously, creating what he called “schemes stacked upon schemes.”

The diplomatic implications for Kenya are significant.

American authorities will expect cooperation in tracking laundered funds and seizing assets purchased with fraud proceeds.

They will want to know why Kenyan nationals have been central to schemes that defrauded American taxpayers. Most critically, they will demand action on money flows that may be funding terrorism.

For ordinary Kenyans, the fraud scheme offers an explanation for spiraling property prices in Nairobi.

They are competing against laundered money from criminal networks that can pay any price because the funds were never legitimately earned.

For Kenyan security forces battling Al-Shabaab, the investigation provides troubling context about how militants maintain their operations despite military pressure.

The questions facing Kenyan authorities are straightforward but increasingly urgent.

Why have there been no parallel prosecutions when American court documents provide detailed evidence? Why have properties purchased with documented fraud proceeds not been seized? Why have shell companies identified in U.S. indictments not been investigated locally?

As Trump’s administration intensifies its focus on what it views as a national security crisis tied to welfare fraud, Kenya’s response, or lack thereof, will face growing international scrutiny.

The conspiracy is documented in court filings and investigated by federal agencies.

Whether Kenyan authorities will act, or whether external pressure will force action, remains to be seen. But with a U.S. president now personally invested in dismantling these networks, the status quo has become untenable.