Feds Announce 17 Minnesota Search Warrants and Charges Alleging $41 Million in Autism Center Fraud

Federal officials put Minnesota at the center of the Trump administration's anti-fraud push on Friday, Oct. 30, with a press conference in St. Cloud that combined new law enforcement actions, a Treasury alert to banks and a round of political fighting.

FBI Director Kash Patel, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald of the National Fraud Enforcement Division all appeared. The event came seven months after the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud was launched.

What was announced

Federal officials said 17 search warrants were served on four targets. The new information focused on raids in Edina and St. Louis Park.

New federal charges allege $41 million in fraud at autism centers. About half of that is allegedly tied to Smart Therapy, whose owner was the first defendant charged in the state's autism fraud cases. These are allegations. Charged defendants are presumed innocent.

"This FBI will continue to follow the money," Patel said. "We will continue working with our inter-agency partners, and we will put every last one of you in prison."

Oz said, "Our nation's war on fraud started right here in Minnesota." CMS has frozen about $550 million in federal Medicaid money to the state over suspected criminal activity. The administration also froze more than $1 billion in Medicaid funds for Minnesota and California combined this summer.

The Treasury side

Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued two documents the same day. One is an alert asking financial institutions to watch for suspicious activity in certain cross-border payments involving U.S. money services businesses. The other is a notice on spotting and reporting the exploitation of charities and nonprofits.

Bessent said the administration has identified more than $8 billion in potentially suspicious wire payments directed by foreign agents between 2021 and 2025. He warned that bad actors can use U.S.-based money services to move money overseas, including to terrorist groups.

"We have ongoing investigations at home and abroad into Al Shabaab, its networks, and its enablers," Bessent said.

Bessent also gave national totals since January 2025. By his account, the administration has uncovered more than $260 billion in fraud, prevented $72 billion and brought enforcement actions against nearly $60 billion. Those are the administration's own figures. No independent accounting of them was offered at the event.

In Minnesota specifically, Bessent said FinCEN has supported law enforcement efforts that led to 115 arrests, 75 convictions and nearly 3,000 subpoenas. Treasury previously issued a geographic targeting order aimed at tracing networks that divert funds overseas.

Why Minnesota, and the per-capita argument

Bessent defended the focus on the state. "I would say that we are at ground zero for per capita [fraud], given the population of Minnesota and this fraud that we've seen," he said. He blamed "the lack of oversight from the AG's office and from the Walz administration," calling it "shocking."

He also made a broader claim: "The Democrats [have] let this happen on their watch. It's going on everywhere, and we're going to track them down. But I can tell you that the guardrails tend to be loosest in the Democratic states."

Senate Democrats countered that the administration is targeting blue states with its enforcement. The press conference fell days before Election Day on Nov. 3.

The numbers from filed cases complicate the per-capita framing. According to FOX 9's tally of court cases to date, prosecutors have alleged almost $550 million in fraud in Minnesota, about $94 per resident. In Florida, prosecutors have alleged more than $14.6 billion, over $622 per resident.

Bessent did not dodge Florida. He said Oz had told him of substantial fraud there, much of it offshore and in the medical equipment industry. He still maintained the problem is worst where Democrats govern.

A congressional study published in 2023 found Texas, a Republican-led state, had the most Medicaid fraud dollars in 2022 at $219.9 million, followed by California, Florida and Louisiana. That measures dollars, not per-capita rates, and it covers one program in one year.

President Trump has been explicit about where he wants the effort aimed. When Vice President JD Vance took over as chair of the anti-fraud task force, Trump wrote on Truth Social in April that the focus would be "EVERYWHERE," but "primarily in those Blue States," naming California, Illinois, Minnesota, Maine and New York. Last week Trump announced a $25 million whistleblower program.

A spokesperson for Gov. Tim Walz did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

Open questions

Officials did not make clear why St. Cloud was chosen, since the new raids were in Edina and St. Louis Park. Bessent said the U.S. attorney invited the group to talk about the crackdown there.

The next measurable step is the FinCEN alert. Banks and money transmitters now have formal guidance on what to flag, and any resulting reports will feed the investigations Bessent says are ongoing in the U.S. and abroad.