Category: Somalis
Exclusive: Bessent tells Rufo — ‘When the bear trap snaps,’ Minnesota fraudsters and complicit officials will face justice
While fraud rings in Minnesota’s Somali community have been under federal investigation for years, it was investigative journalist and BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo’s reporting that brought the billion-dollar scandals to national attention. Back in November 2025, Rufo published a report titled “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer,” in which he and co-author Ryan Thorpe alleged that billions of taxpayer funds were being stolen through schemes in Minneapolis’ Somali community and that millions of those funds were being funneled to the Al-Shabaab terror group in Somalia.
Rufo’s reporting sparked massive federal action, including revoking Temporary Protected Status for Somalis, surging Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, freezing child-care funds, and ramping up prosecutions. Most notably, it led Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to visit Minnesota in January 2026 and launch major FinCEN probes into hawala businesses, IRS audits, and enhanced transfer reporting.
In this exclusive BlazeTV interview with Rufo, Bessent shares what his team’s investigations have revealed about Minnesota’s Somali fraud operations and what steps the Treasury is taking to ensure it stops.
Bessent says his team’s investigations confirmed that the fraud schemes were “bigger than anyone thought” and that money — either excess government-issued funds or stolen funds — are indeed being sent illegally out of the country.
One positive result of the investigations into Minnesota’s fraud rings, however, is that they will provide a “model” for future investigations in the other 49 states.
“Just because of the population sizes — California, Illinois, New York — that what’s going on [in Minnesota] is a microcosm of what’s going on there. And it’s like someone on the panel said today: Benefits have been turned into businesses. It is a cottage industry of teaching people how to form multiple LLCs, how to game the system, how to move money around,” says Bessent, pledging to “follow the money” and explore “recoveries” for cheated Americans.
Rufo calls these predominantly Somali-orchestrated fraud rings Minnesota’s “open secret.” Fraudsters were successful largely because they knew that the cultural standard of “Minnesota nice” and politicians’ “fear of being called racist” would result in the turning of blind eyes everywhere.
“What do you think the right attitude should be as you look at these frauds moving forward?” he asks.
“Clearly the governor’s office does not want to do investigations. So we just want the facts. We want to see where they lead, and we want to put the bad guys in jail,” says Bessent.
Further Minnesota’s soft-on-crime policies that “incentivize” criminality need to be addressed. “You could steal hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars, and under the Minnesota laws, you might not even get jail time. You might get a series of paroles,” Bessent adds.
“We have the ability to bring in IRS enforcement, and they don’t monkey around. So the incentive is going to be to stop this.”
Rufo then posed the question that conservatives nationwide are eagerly awaiting an answer to: Will we finally see any big names face justice?
“From [Gov. Tim Walz] on down appears to be at a minimum to have turned a blind eye. There are rumors circulating around this building right now that in fact some have been complicit in these schemes. Is that something your office is looking into?” he asks.
“That’s part of following the money. There are evidently some disturbing tapes of AG Ellison in meetings with people who donated to him calling for political favors to stop the investigations. So we’ll see,” says Bessent.
“And Chris, I can guarantee you when the bear trap snaps, we’re going to get these folks.”
To hear the rest of Rufo’s exclusive interview with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, watch the video above.
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Minnesotans Begged GOP Rep To Stop The Somalis Over A Decade Ago — He Told Them It Was Impossible
‘We did not ask for those Somalis’
VIRAL video: Somali man taunts Americans — ‘Go to work for me, you f**king white animals!’
A TikTok video created by a Somali-American man is going viral on social media right now.
In it, the creator says: “Thank you for working so hard so I can be home all day — free. I can use my EBT. Go to work for me, white boy, white girl! Yeah! Go to work for me, you f**king white animals! F**king work for me. Yeah, you f**king work for me. And the U.S. government — they work for me. All of you work for me. Now go to work.”
This is what we get when Christians assume they intuitively know the character of God instead of actually reading Scripture, Steve Deace says.
Back when Deace was a new Christian and just beginning his career in politics, he struggled with “being kind to the alien and sojourner.” He would often speak to people who were pro-immigration — nuns, pastors, and Chamber of Commerce officials — who would peddle the argument that “these are just people that want to have a track at life.”
“I could see myself falling into this to the point that one day, I let them put one of their illegal aliens on my show,” he says.
This particular individual was attending the University of Iowa — a “very prestigious public university in the Midwest, if not America,” Deace says.
The conversation was “fairly sympathetic” until Deace asked him this question: What do you say to the parents of students in Iowa whose children were denied a seat at Iowa State University because the university chose to give it to you — an illegal alien?
His answer, Deace says, “was a lot like that Somali video.”
In essence, he said this: “Well, you guys stole this land from the Injuns. It’s an illegitimate country. I don’t feel any guilt and remorse whatsoever. And you’ve been raping the Latin world and third world ever since. So, you owe me.”
At that moment, the “scales [fell] off” Deace’s eyes. “I’m sitting there saying to myself during the break, ‘I just let these people work me over.’ Absolutely just worked me over. That’ll never happen again,” he recounts.
Today, he doesn’t let others’ speculations about the character of God inform his viewpoints. He just looks at Scripture.
“Let’s open up the word of God and see what it actually says. And I’m reading Nehemiah. There’s mass deportations. They’re building walls. God is punishing his people for not keeping boundary stones. I think the first judgment after Noah’s flood is the Tower of Babel. And God’s like, ‘Nope, you guys do not get to come together as one nebulous, globalist glob. We’re not doing that here,”’ Deace says.
But years and years of Christians ignorantly assuming that, according to God’s character, we should open borders and welcome anyone and everyone who wants to come here has landed us in the predicament we’re currently in — a predicament where a Somali immigrant can sit at home for free and make videos taunting white Americans, whom he considers his personal slaves.
“Now it’s just in your face,” Deace says.
The attitude of so many illegal aliens, he says, is this: “We will pee on you and tell you it’s raining. In fact, while we’re peeing on you and you know we’re peeing on you and you can smell the urine in the air, we’re going to keep just telling you it’s raining. We’re going to laugh at you because we have no fear of you whatsoever. None. We have no fear of your politicians.”
To hear more of Deace’s response, watch the video above.
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It’s not ‘racist’ to notice Somali fraud
Last week, my colleague Ryan Thorpe and I broke a story about widespread fraud committed by Somalis in Minnesota. Members of the state’s Somali community allegedly participated in complex schemes related to autism services, food programs, and housing, which prosecutors estimate have stolen billions of taxpayer dollars. Even worse, some of the cash has ended up in the hands of Al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization in Somalia.
The story quickly reached the White House. Within days, President Trump announced that he was revoking Temporary Protected Status for all Somali migrants in Minnesota.
Progressives have suggested that our reporting and the subsequent policy change were “racist.” While many of those indicted in these schemes are Somali, these critics argue, the federal government should not hold Minnesota’s Somali community corporately responsible for the actions of individuals.
Little Mogadishu in Minneapolis has a real problem, and it is about time that our government began facing it.
This criticism is superficially appealing, but it isn’t persuasive on closer inspection.
First, a description of the facts should not be measured as “racist or not racist,” but rather as “true or not true.” And in this case, the truth is that numerous members of a relatively small community participated in a scheme that stole billions in taxpayer funds. This is a legitimate consideration for American immigration policy, which is organized around nation of origin and, for more than 30 years, has favorably treated Somalis relative to other groups. It is more than fair to ask whether that policy has served the national interest. The fraud story suggests that the answer is “no.”
Second, the fact that Somalis are black is incidental. If Norwegian immigrants were perpetrating fraud at the same alleged scale and had the same employment and income statistics as Somalis, it would be perfectly reasonable to make the same criticism and enact the same policy response. It would not be “racist” against Norwegians to do so.
Further, Somalis have enormously high unemployment rates, and federal law enforcement has long considered Minneapolis’ Little Mogadishu neighborhood a hot spot for terrorism recruitment. We should condemn that behavior without regard to skin color.
The underlying question — which, until now, Americans have been loath to address directly — is that of different behaviors and outcomes between different groups. Americans tend to avoid this question, rely on euphemisms, and let these distinctions remain implied rather than spoken aloud. Yet it seems increasingly untenable to maintain this Anglo-American courtesy when the left has spent decades insisting that we conceptualize our national life in terms of group identity.
The reality is that different groups have different cultural characteristics. The national culture of Somalia is different from the national culture of Norway. Somalis and Norwegians therefore tend to think differently, behave differently, and organize themselves differently, which leads to different group outcomes. Norwegians in Minnesota behave similarly to Norwegians in Norway; Somalis in Minnesota behave similarly to Somalis in Somalia. Many cultural patterns from Somalia — particularly clan networks, informal economies, and distrust of state institutions — travel with the diaspora and have shown up in Minnesota as well. In the absence of strong assimilation pressures, the fraud networks aren’t so surprising; they reflect the extension of Somali institutional norms into a new environment with weak enforcement and poorly designed incentives.
The beauty of America is that we had a system that thoughtfully balanced individual and group considerations. We recognized that all men, whatever their background, have a natural right to life, liberty, property, and equal treatment under the law. We also recognized that group averages can be a basis for judgment — especially in immigration, where they can help determine which potential immigrant groups are most suitable and advantageous for America.
RELATED: Chip Roy’s immigration blitz hits the lawless left and the squish right
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
These principles are in tension but not in contradiction. As a sociological matter, a policy of equal rights for all individuals will result in unequal outcomes among groups. This is not a sign of injustice per se. It is an inevitability. No two groups are the same, and therefore, no two groups will have the same outcomes in a system of individual liberty and equality.
The firestorm around the Somali fraud story was so intense precisely because it forced this question into the spotlight. For decades, America has given Somali immigrants special privileges through TPS. We have expected Somalis to play by the rules, contribute to the country, and assimilate into the culture. Some individuals have certainly done so, but as the fraud story suggests, many others have not. A rational government would amend its policies accordingly.
We can see the same process playing out in other parts of the world. In the United Kingdom, mass immigration from incompatible cultures is creating a civilizational crisis. Rather than replicate the policies of our sister country, we should accept reality and adopt a more thoughtful policy, which recognizes cultural norms as a reasonable measure of capacity to assimilate and to contribute.
The president should stand firm. Little Mogadishu in Minneapolis has a real problem, and it is about time that our government began facing it.
Editor’s note: This article appeared originally on Substack.
