Cash payments will be waiting for whistleblowers who provide information related to Minnesota’s unfolding fraud scandal, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday.
The announcement of reward money comes as the Trump administration is pursuing wide-scale fraud investigations in Minnesota due to persistent allegations involving money-laundering schemes, pirating of federal human services funds, and other misuse of taxpayer money.
“We know that these rats will turn on each other,” Bessent told Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle on Friday.
“We are going to offer whistleblower payments to anyone who wants to tell us the who, what, when, where, and how this fraud has been done. I think that that will give us a great leap forward on how to get it done,” he added.
The secretary did not detail how whistleblowers should go about tipping off authorities, though the Treasury Department does have a webpage dedicated to reporting “fraud, waste, and abuse.”
Persistent and multi-agency allegations of fraud, many tied to the Somali community in the state, have been unfolding on almost a daily basis in recent weeks as the administration has also ramped up its illegal immigration crackdown there.
As Breitbart News reported back in December, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that 85 Somalian nationals have been charged regarding ongoing fraud taking place in Minnesota, with “more prosecutions coming.”
Those comments followed independent journalist Nick Shirley’s video showing him visiting daycare centers that were reportedly receiving millions of dollars in federal aid despite there being no signs of children at the locations.
The scope of the fraud scandal has expanded substantially since then and resulted in Gov. Tim Walz announcing that he will not be running for reelection.
As part of an overall effort, the Treasury Department is now applying closer scrutiny to money services firms that enable financial transactions between Minnesota residents and businesses and the country of Somalia, Bessent told reporters during a visit to the state Friday.
The secretary said this includes investigations into four businesses that people use to wire money to family members abroad, though he did not name the companies.
Food fraud has now come into the mix.
Minnesota childcare and food-distribution facilities have been accused of misusing federal funds while a recent audit showed corruption tied to taxpayer-funded grant programs, according to a Fox News report. Also, daycare and food-distribution sites received money for nutrition services but allegedly did not serve any food.
Also, a state audit released earlier this week revealed that a Minnesota government agency has failed to meet many requirements for overseeing millions in federal funds to mental health and addiction services.
In the wake of the Minnesota revelations, the Trump administration recently froze $10 billion in social assistance and childcare funding to Minnesota and four other Democrat-led states.
However, all five states filed suit and a Biden-appointed New York federal judge on Friday temporarily halted the freeze for at least 14 days while lawyers make their arguments in court. The judge didn’t rule on the merits of the complaint.
Bessent said efforts to game the system in Minnesota haven’t halted at the steps of the courthouse. He pointed to a recent finding in which a convicted fraudster allegedly attempted to bribe a juror.
“One of the people who has been convicted of fraud — she was given $200,000 to bribe a juror,” he told Fox News. “And she was so corrupt, she skimmed $80,000 of it and only tried to give a $120,000 bribe.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true-crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.