The White House announced Thursday that the Department of Justice will create a new national fraud enforcement division to pursue criminal and civil cases involving fraud targeting federal programs and nonprofits amid the investigations into the sprawling Somali-related welfare fraud scheme.
The new division “will enforce the Federal criminal and civil laws against fraud targeting Federal government programs, Federally funded benefits, businesses, nonprofits, and private citizens nationwide,” the White House said, adding that a newly appointed assistant attorney general will oversee national enforcement priorities and advise senior Justice Department leadership on high-impact cases.
The administration said federal agencies have already expanded fraud investigations, deploying additional prosecutors, investigators, forensic accountants, and data-analysis teams, while increasing the use of subpoenas, search warrants, and site inspections to uncover coordinated networks exploiting federal programs across multiple states.
The move comes amid fraud investigations in Minnesota, where federal prosecutors have warned that state-administered benefit programs have been exploited on what one senior official described as an “industrial scale.” DOJ has brought cases tied to child nutrition, Medicaid, housing assistance, and other social services, while repeatedly warning that the volume of suspected fraud far outstrips available manpower—prompting the department to double the number of prosecutors and surge investigative resources into the state in recent months.
Much of the fraud, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, was uncovered after a group of mostly Somali immigrants set up a fraudulent charity, Feeding Our Future, and stole money from a federal child nutrition program. The DOJ has charged 98 people, according to the White House, and 64 have already been convicted.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D.) dropped his reelection bid on Monday as he faced mounting criticism over his handling of the fraud. Last month, a KSTP and Survey USA poll found that 79 percent of registered Minnesota voters think fraud in state programs is either the biggest or a major problem in the state, and 69 percent said Walz needed to “do more” to stop the fraud.
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