Feds serve 22 search warrants related to Minnesota fraud investigations

Federal agents raided 22 locations in the Twin Cities on Tuesday, April 28, as part of ongoing investigations into fraud in Minnesota’s public programs.

The sites included autism service providers that received payments through Medicaid, according to a statement from the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

“If you commit fraud in Minnesota you’re going to get caught — and that’s exactly what we saw today,” Gov. Tim Walz said in a statement. “We catch criminals when state and federal agencies share information. Joint investigations work, and securing justice depends on it.”

The Reformer first reported in 2024 that the FBI was investigating autism centers, and that some of the defendants in the Feeding Our Future scandal — when dozens of people defrauded a pandemic-era nutrition program to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars — had ties to autism centers.

In September, federal prosecutors charged the first person in the investigation into autism service providers.

Since then, the state has deemed 14 Medicaid programs — including Early Intensive Developmental Behavioral Intervention, i.e., the autism program — as “high risk,” implementing a slate of new checks on providers.

The 14 programs have doubled in cost in the past five years, though providers and the people they serve say the increases are due to legitimate efforts to keep people with disabilities in their homes and communities and out of institutions.

Meanwhile, Republicans up to and including the president have hammered Walz and Minnesota Democrats for failing to stop the fraud. The federal government has taken steps to target Somali immigrants — many of those charged in the fraud investigations so far are of Somali descent — by sending thousands of immigration agents to the state and speeding up deportation proceedings.

The autism investigation has moved forward without Joe Thompson, the career prosecutor who led the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s criminal fraud investigations until he abruptly resigned in January. He and other frontline prosecutors faced pressure from the Trump administration to investigate the widow of Renee Good after immigration agents shot and killed Good in south Minneapolis, the New York Times reported.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.