Homeland Security says a fraud investigation is underway in Minneapolis

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Homeland Security says a fraud investigation is underway in Minneapolis

2025-12-30 05:00 Last Updated At：05:10

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal Homeland Security officials were conducting a fraud investigation on Monday in Minneapolis, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.

The action comes after years of investigation that began with the $300 million scheme at the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, for which 57 defendants in Minnesota have been convicted. Prosecutors said the organization was at the center of the country’s largest COVID-19-related fraud scam, when defendants exploited a state-run, federally funded program intended to provide food for children.

A federal prosecutor alleged earlier in December that half or more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said then that fraud will not be tolerated and that his administration “will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.”

Noem on Monday posted a video on the social platform X showing DHS officers going into an unidentified business and questioning the person working behind the counter. Noem said that officers were “conducting a massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud."

“The American people deserve answers on how their taxpayer money is being used and ARRESTS when abuse is found,” U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement posted.

The action comes a day after FBI Director Kash Patel said on X that the agency had “surged personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota to dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs.”

Patel said that previous fraud arrests in Minnesota were “just the tip of a very large iceberg."

President Donald Trump has criticized Walz’s administration over the fraud cases to date.

In recent weeks, tensions have been high between state and federal enforcement in the area as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown focused on the Somali community in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, which is the largest in the country.

Among those running schemes to get funds for child nutrition, housing services and autism programs, 82 of the 92 defendants are Somali Americans, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota.

Walz spokesperson Claire Lancaster said that the governor has worked for years to “crack down on fraud” and was seeking more authority from the Legislature to take aggressive action. Walz has supported criminal prosecutions and taken a number of other steps, including strengthening oversight and hiring an outside firm to audit payments to high-risk programs, Lancaster said.

Trump warns Iran against reconstituting nuclear program as he welcomes Israel's Netanyahu for talks

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump warned Iran against reconstituting its nuclear program Monday as he welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his home in Florida for wide-ranging talks.

The warning comes after Trump has insisted that Tehran's nuclear capabilities were “completely and fully obliterated” by U.S. strikes on key nuclear enrichment sites in June. But Israeli officials have been quoted in local media expressing concern about Iran rebuilding its supply of long-range missiles capable of striking Israel.

“Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again,” Trump told reporters soon after Netanyahu arrived at his Mar-a-Lago estate. “And if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down. We'll knock them down. We'll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully that’s not happening.”

Trump’s warning to Iran comes as his administration has committed significant resources to targeting drug trafficking in South America and the president looks to create fresh momentum for the U.S.-brokered Israel-Hamas ceasefire. The Gaza deal is in danger of stalling before reaching its complicated second phase that would involve naming an international governing body and rebuilding the devastated Palestinian territory.

Iran has insisted that it is no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program. But Netanyahu was expected to discuss with Trump the need to potentially take new military action against Tehran just months after launching a 12-day war on Iran.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s warning.

Trump criticized Iran anew for not making a deal to completely disarm its nuclear program ahead of the U.S. and Israeli strikes earlier this year.

“They wish they made that deal,” Trump said.

Trump, with Netanyahu by his side, said he wants to get to the second phase of the Gaza deal “as quickly as we can.”

“But there has to be a disarming of Hamas,” Trump added.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that Trump championed has mostly held, but progress has slowed recently. Both sides accuse each other of violations, and divisions have emerged among the U.S., Israel and Arab countries about the path forward.

The truce's first phase began in October, days after the two-year anniversary of the initial Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people. All but one of the 251 hostages taken then have been released, alive or dead.

The Israeli leader, who also met separately with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has signaled he is in no rush to move forward with the next phase as long as the remains of Ran Gvili are still in Gaza.

Gvili’s parents met with Netanyahu as well as Rubio, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in Florida on Monday. The Gvilis are expected to meet with Trump later in the day, according to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group that advocates for families of abductees of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

“They’re waiting for their son to come home," Trump said of the family of the young police officer known affectionately as “Rani,”

The path ahead is certainly complicated.

If successful, the second phase would see the rebuilding of a demilitarized Gaza under international supervision by a group chaired by Trump and known as the Board of Peace. The Palestinians would form a “technocratic, apolitical” committee to run daily affairs in Gaza, under Board of Peace supervision.

It further calls for normalized relations between Israel and the Arab world and a possible pathway to Palestinian independence. Then there are thorny logistical and humanitarian questions, including rebuilding war-ravaged Gaza, disarming Hamas and creating a security apparatus called the International Stabilization Force.

Two main challenges have complicated moving to the second phase, according to an official who was briefed on those meetings. Israeli officials have been taking a lot of time to vet and approve members of the Palestinian technocratic committee from a list given to them by the mediators, and Israel continues its military strikes.

Trump’s plan also calls for the stabilization force, proposed as a multinational body, to maintain security. But it, too, has yet to be formed. Whether details will be forthcoming after Monday's meeting is unclear.

A Western diplomat said there is a “huge gulf” between the U.S.-Israeli understanding of the force's mandate and that of other major countries in the region, as well as European governments.

All spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that haven't been made public.

The U.S. and Israel want the force to have a “commanding role” in security duties, including disarming Hamas and other militant groups. But countries being courted to contribute troops fear that mandate will make it an “occupation force,” the diplomat said.

Hamas has said it is ready to discuss “freezing or storing” its arsenal of weapons but insists it has a right to armed resistance as long as Israel occupies Palestinian territory. One U.S. official said a potential plan might be to offer cash incentives in exchange for weapons, echoing a “buyback” program Witkoff has previously floated.

The two leaders, who have a long and close relationship, heaped praise on each other. Trump also tweaked the Israeli leader, who at moments during the war has raised Trump's ire, for being “very difficult on occasion.”

Trump also renewed his call on Israeli President Isaac Herzog to grant Netanyahu, who is in the midst of a corruption trial, a pardon.

Netanyahu is the only sitting prime minister in Israeli history to stand trial, after being charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases accusing him of exchanging favors with wealthy political supporters.

Trump has previously written to Herzog to urge a pardon and advocated for one during his October speech before the Knesset. He said Monday that Herzog has told him “it’s on its way" without offering further details.

“He’s a wartime prime minister who’s a hero. How do you not give a pardon?" Trump said.

Herzog's office said in a statement that the Israeli president and Trump have not spoken since the pardon request was submitted, but that Herzog has spoken with a Trump representative about the U.S. president's letter advocating for Netanyahu's pardon.

“During that conversation, an explanation was provided regarding the stage of the process in which the request currently stands, and that any decision on the matter will be made in accordance with the established procedures,” the Israeli president's office. “This was conveyed to President Trump’s representative, exactly as President Herzog stated publicly in Israel.”

Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington, Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations, and Lee Keath and Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.