Whistleblower Alleges Somali Welfare Fraud in Ohio

“They’re just rubberstamping a lot of these. And then that same individual, a week later, that’s supposed to be bedridden, is all over social media, whether they’re out dancing at a party or something like that. So, the symptoms aren’t really adding up at the end of the day,” Cooke says.

Many blame the Somali fraud issue on the country’s flawed culture. “Amoral familism is a [Somali] cultural blueprint,” says Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who fled from her Somali father to live in Europe. “It assumes that… survival depends on extracting maximum benefit for one’s own family,” regardless of the damage to fellow citizens, she wrote in December.

Cooke explained how the scam works, telling Fox News, “Say I want to take care of my elderly aging parents at some point. I can become a home health provider, and this is where the Somali community has been really clever. They’ve been able to find loopholes in Ohio law to provide for care for family members, even when they don’t need it.”

“We have entrusted states to look at the funding and to allocate it to build programs, to build rules and regulations,” she continued. “But unfortunately, in states like Ohio, it is being infiltrated and broken down because you don’t actually have independent assessments with not only doctors but somebody at the Department of Medicaid coming in.”

“So, a lot of times what’s happening is an individual is coached to lie to a doctor,” she said, adding that much of the time those filing don’t even qualify for the benefits.

“What we’re seeing in Minneapolis is just a snippet of what’s happening in Ohio,” Cooke exclaimed.