Criminal charges have been filed against 15 accused fraudsters in Minnesota, involving more than $90 million in taxpayers’ dollars, federal officials announced on May 21 at a news conference in Minneapolis.

“Today, we are holding scammers accountable who ripped off the American taxpayer and harmed those deserving legitimate assistance from these programs,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), the 15 defendants charged under the so-called Minnesota Health Care Fraud Takedown initiative include owners of child care centers as well as multiple Medicaid providers, including those involved in the two largest Medicaid fraud cases for which charges have ever been brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

“These alleged con artists stole taxpayer dollars while providing substandard care for children and abandoning at least one Medicaid recipient as they passed away,” Blanche said, listing some of the worst offenses alleged in the charges.

“The DOJ Fraud Division, along with the White House’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, will dismantle illegal schemes from coast-to-coast, just as they did today in Minnesota. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for the National Fraud Enforcement Division, struck the same tone at the news conference, describing the charges filed on May 21 as “the beginning of [the division’s] work in Minnesota.”

McDonald took the helm of that newly formed DOJ division less than two months ago.

He alleged that the suspects “systematically pilfered” seven different government benefit programs, treating them as “their personal piggy bank.”

Officials revealed the new charges shortly after a federal judge sentenced a convicted fraudster to nearly 42 years in prison. Prosecutors said Aimee Bock, now 45, was the “mastermind” behind $242 million illegally taken from the federal Child Nutrition Program. The organization that Bock headed, Feeding Our Future, operated the nation’s largest COVID-19 pandemic fraud scheme, officials said.

Bock and dozens of other suspects were charged beginning in 2022. That was three years before Minnesota’s estimated $9 billion in government program fraud rose to national prominence and inspired President Donald Trump to launch a nationwide fraud enforcement effort.

The latest accusations involve programs such as autism services and Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services, which the state shut down because of fraud.

In 2020, the housing assistance program was budgeted for $2.5 million annually. But by 2024, it “ended up costing almost 50 times that much, over $104 million,” because of fraud, McDonald said.

“The same trends exist for other Minnesota-run taxpayer-funded programs,” he said, referencing charges related to an autism fund fraud scheme.

In what the DOJ describes as “the largest Medicaid autism fraud case ever charged by the Department,” two individuals were charged for allegedly taking part in a roughly $46.6 million scheme to defraud the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention, which offers certain essential medical services to people with autism spectrum disorder younger than 21.

Minnesota’s initial adoption of the program in 2017 resulted in $600,000, but this figure “skyrocketed to over $400 million” by 2025, McDonald noted.

He attributed that exponential increase to fraud, not a need for services.

Calling the new prosecutions “unprecedented,” McDonald said they include “the highest loss amount ever charged in a Medicaid case in Minnesota, and the largest autism fraud scheme ever charged by the Department of Justice.”

The defendants’ names and further details about the charges were not immediately available.

“The common theme throughout these cases is fraudsters exploiting vulnerable people [and programs],” McDonald said.

The defendants used disabled people “like lottery tickets ... to generate millions of dollars,” McDonald said, noting that the ill-gotten gains were used to buy real estate, luxury vehicles, and expensive jewelry.

He said the suspects were determined to reap money no matter what it cost others.

In one case, a client died after failing to receive care for which an alleged fraudster billed Medicaid, McDonald said.

“We will not ... tolerate this greed and deceit,” he said.

In recent months, the Trump administration has focused on fraud, producing “450 fraud enforcement actions” nationwide, he said.

The efforts are expanding, McDonald said, announcing that 15 additional prosecutors have been hired.

“If you see something that seems too good to be true, tell us,” he said, referring to anyone in Minnesota or the rest of the United States.

McDonald noted that parents were being paid kickbacks to enroll their children in some of the programs.

He urged citizens: “Speak out. Help us win the fight against fraud.”

And he warned fraudsters: “Eat, drink, and be merry today. Because your days of frolicking and freedom are numbered.”

McDonald said he would “claw back every dollar [they] have stolen from the American people.”

Also speaking at the news conference, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the indirect costs of fraud are high, too.

“Fraud drives up health care costs for all Americans,” Kennedy said. “It weakens public trust. It drains taxpayer resources and threatens the long-term stability of both Medicaid and Medicare. If we fail to confront the fraud aggressively, these programs will not survive for future generations in the form Americans rely upon them today.”

He commended Trump and Vice President JD Vance for “carrying out the most aggressive anti-fraud effort in American history.”

Kennedy said fraud cases often take years, or even decades, to assemble, but in these cases, prosecutors and investigators worked with “a precision and speed that is unprecedented in the history of law enforcement.”