Minnesota did not merely fail to catch Salman Ahmed Elmi. The state put his name on an award, handed him a plaque, and posted his inspirational quotes on a government website. Five years later, prosecutors say he was helping bill Medicaid for more than $1 million in services that never existed — in a scheme that allegedly ran alongside a sex-trafficking operation.
Elmi is now facing three counts of aiding and abetting by swindle and five counts of aiding and abetting by false representation, according to Fox 9 Minneapolis, whose reporting was picked up by Fox News. The charging documents allege that two people involved in the fraud scheme were tied to a sex-trafficking ring involving brothels. Fox 9 also reported that Elmi was part of a startup that once drew financial backing from “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary.
Here is the part that turned this into a national story. In 2021, the Minnesota Department of Human Services — the very agency at the center of the state’s cascading fraud scandal — named Elmi an “outstanding refugee” and gave him an Entrepreneurship Award. The same department that cuts the Medicaid checks handed out the trophy. “The same agency that awarded Elmi is the SAME agency that gives out Medicaid payments,” commentator Benny Johnson wrote on X. “You can’t make this up.”
Nobody could. “You literally cannot make this up,” pundit Eric Daugherty posted. “Get these people out of my country.” ACT for America founder Brigitte Gabriel was harsher still: “Fraud is so rampant in this demographic that it’s rewarded instead of punished. When the system celebrates the looters, you have a culture problem.” RNC member AK Kamara put the blame where the votes are: “This is the Minnesota Democrat officials created. Endless depravity and taxpayer-funded fraud.”
Elmi’s own words are still archived on the DHS site. “I started a business to help inspire other people,” he said. “No one owns businesses in my family; my entire family came here with the idea that the American dream was just getting a job and making it work.” The state loved that story so much it never checked the ledger behind it.
And this is not one bad apple in an otherwise clean barrel. Minnesota, governed by Tim Walz since 2019, has spent the past year buried under systemic fraud — largely involving the local Somali community — that prosecutors estimate could exceed $9 billion across state departments and programs. Critics have argued for years that the looting was an open secret, protected by officials too frightened of being called racist to say a word. Walz was ultimately forced to abandon his re-election bid over the fallout. Fox News Digital reached out to his office for comment.
A DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital the Outstanding Refugee Awards ended in 2024 and that recipients received only a certificate and a plaque, no money. “Salman Elmi’s alleged actions are disturbing and do not reflect the goal of the Outstanding Refugee Awards,” the spokesperson said. “They also do not represent Minnesota’s refugee community.”
This is a window into what happens when a government decides that vetting is a form of bigotry. Minnesota did not just miss the fraud — it built an awards ceremony on top of it, then spent years punishing anyone who noticed. Taxpayers are out billions, real victims were trafficked, and the state’s answer is that the award program has since been discontinued. That is not accountability. That is a receipt.
Source: foxnews.com