Ryan Thorpe

There is a massive problem with systemic fraud in the state of Minnesota when it comes to government welfare programs.

We're talking about billions of dollars that have been defrauded in recent years.

The situation has gotten so bad that there are entire government programs where the US Attorney's Office has indicated the fraud outstrips the legitimate claims.

When it comes to the fraud rings that have been exposed to date, these crimes have been heavily concentrated in Minnesota's Somali community.

And this has kind of been an open secret in the state for quite some time, but something that progressive politicians, kind of progressive media was really loathe to admit in terms of what was going on.

And then as part of our investigation at City Journal, we spoke to a number of

Political sources, law enforcement sources, counterterrorism sources, and people indicated to us that millions of dollars in stolen American taxpayers have been sent abroad and that some of this money had inadvertently ended up in the hands of al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda affiliate.

That's fair to say.

I wouldn't be able to prove.

We didn't include it in our article, the claim that, yes, this money was specifically defrauded with the express purpose of fundraising for Al-Shabaab.

We can't justify that claim.

But regardless, we can't rule it out as a possibility.

And the bottom line is either way, Al-Shabaab's getting a cut, whether or not they're intending for that to be the case or not.

So we don't know the total dollar figure here.

There are whistleblowers in the DHS in Minnesota who say it could be as bad as 6.5 billion.

But I think what

What's safe to say is we're talking about billions of dollars.

And on numerous occasions, the U.S.

Attorney's Office has indicated these three major fraud rings that have been exposed to date.

We're talking about a billion dollars there.