Minnesota fraud ring leader could have riches seized...

Another shoe drops in expanding fraud story that is rocking the state.

A whole post about what is happening in Minnesota because this story keeps getting more fascinating and Tim Walz is facing the heat.

Aimee Bock, that’s the name of the woman who headed up a $250 million fraud scheme in Minnesota that collected government money for not feeding people. That’s right, Bock, who founded a not-for-profit in 2016 promising to help feed children from low-income families.

When the pandemic hit and rules were loosened, authorities say Bock learned how to bend the rules and began claiming for meals that were non-existent. At one point her network had claimed to have provided 91 million meals to the needy.

The money was going in their pockets, now the government wants it back.

As Minnesota Public Radio reports, a federal judge has agreed to a preliminary order that could allow the government to seize, cash, property and a luxury car to recoup funds.

The order, signed Tuesday, is not final. A permanent decision on forfeiture will come at Bock’s sentencing. She was convicted in March of orchestrating a scheme that exploited federal child nutrition programs and fleeced taxpayers out of about $250 million.

The forfeiture motion was filed by the U.S. attorney’s office. Assets tied to Bock that could be seized include about $3.7 million in bank accounts and cash, a 2013 Porsche, and electronics, clothing and jewelry taken during a 2022 search of her home.

Bock, along with dozens of others, was charged in this scandal back in 2022 and convicted earlier this year. Fox News reports that she organized other fraudsters, as many as 75 have been charged, and according to court testimony, she ran the operation ruthlessly to extract as much money as possible.

As executive director of Feeding Our Future, Bock approved meal sites, some of which were fake, and then certified the claims, signing off on the reimbursements from the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE).

She would soon preside over a network that claimed to have served 91 million meals, for which prosecutors say the scammers fraudulently received nearly $250 million in federal funds, a scale of growth that far outpaced the nonprofit’s pre-pandemic size and internal capacity. Later filings and sentencing releases described the total impact as closer to $300 million.

This is just the food program, there are also fraud allegations about daycare centres, housing programs, autism programs and more.

If you’ve watched any of the coverage from Nick Shirley, you’ve seen that one of the daycare centres was called “Quality Learing Center.” Nothing says quality like misspelling learning on your sign.

This is reportedly a centre that is responsible for up to 99 kids and gets millions a year in taxpayer funding. The daycare is in an industrial style building with windows all blacked out and no outdoor play area for the kids.

Which means, it’s likely a front and a fraud.

Governor Tim Walz is trying to defend all of this by saying he’s been cracking down for years as his office told Fox News.

“The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action,” the spokesperson said. “He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed.”

The spokesperson added that Walz has “hired an outside firm to audit payments to high-risk programs, shut down the Housing Stabilization Services program entirely, announced a new statewide program integrity director, and supported criminal prosecutions.”

If that were accurate, I’d applaud Walz, but the report into daycare fraud from the Office of the Legislative Auditor was published in early 2019 shortly after Walz took office. It detailed the widespread fraud in daycare centres, but that problem persists today and appears to have grown.

I said this yesterday, and I’ll say it again. While there is a strong Somali connection to this fraud, it’s not just the Somali community.

There have been Americans like Aimee Bock charged and convicted along with Kenyan nationals and others, in addition to Somani-Americans.

It appears that everyone looked at Minnesota and saw an easy mark.

When I’ve covered program abuse in Canada, normally a low level like individuals ripping off employment insurance, liberals can’t believe that anyone would take advantage of programs. It’s like they’ve never been with people who plan their EI weeks to make sure they have enough time in to make sure they are laid off for the opening of hunting or fishing season.

They don’t seem to understand that there are people who will try to scam every program and that organized crime and terror groups will always look to take advantage of programs. It’s doubtful that all or even most of the money scammed in Minnesota ended up in the hands of the al-Shabab terror group, but undoubtedly some did whether directly or indirectly.

The debate over whether there is widespread fraud happening in Minnesota is over, the only question now is whether anything is ever done to fix this problem or if they keep turning a blind eye.