The White House announced Thursday that the Department of Justice is launching a new national fraud enforcement division to target criminal and civil fraud cases involving federal programs, nonprofits, and federally funded benefits, the Washington Free Beacon reports. The move comes as investigators continue to uncover an extensive Somali-related welfare fraud scheme centered in Minnesota.
According to the White House, 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.” A new assistant attorney general will lead the division, setting national enforcement priorities, coordinating multi-agency investigations, and advising senior Justice Department officials on major cases.
Federal agencies have already stepped up efforts to combat fraud, deploying additional prosecutors, forensic accountants, investigators, and analytical teams nationwide. The Justice Department has expanded its use of subpoenas, search warrants, and site visits to dismantle complex fraud networks exploiting federal programs in multiple states. These intensified efforts follow a surge of investigations in Minnesota, where prosecutors have described systemic fraud in state-run benefit programs as operating on an “industrial scale.”
Recent cases have exposed irregularities in “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,” according to the Free Beacon.
Much of the fraud, which was found to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was linked to the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, which federal prosecutors say was used by a group of mostly Somali immigrants to siphon money from a federal child nutrition program. As of this week, the Justice Department has charged 98 defendants, with 64 already convicted. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has faced growing criticism over the state’s oversight of these programs, with recent polls showing strong public concern about the extent of welfare fraud under his administration.