Hennepin County Cancels Business Fund Due to Fraud

A Minnesota county has quietly discontinued a fund designed to support businesses affected by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations after receiving a surge of fraudulent claims.

Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, ended its $2 million fund aimed at compensating businesses purportedly harmed by ICE’s Operation Metro Surge. This decision came after officials could only validate 82 out of approximately 300 claims submitted.

Operation Metro Surge commenced in December, resulting in the arrest of over 4,000 undocumented migrants throughout Minnesota.

The county had reviewed around 300 applications for the reimbursement fund. However, investigations revealed that many filings were, quite clearly, fraudulent.

“The fact that people, after this wave of fraud, felt emboldened to apply and think they could get away with it—it highlights a real issue because there seems to be no fear of consequences,” remarked Hennepin County Commissioner Jeffrey Lunde. “Until we instill some level of fear, these behaviors will likely continue.”

Investigators discovered numerous applications containing false addresses, and some had information generated by AI that was then pasted onto other submissions. In some cases, businesses listed on applications didn’t even exist when officials attempted to verify them.

“At a certain point, we recognized that the results we were getting were declining. So we decided it was time to halt the program and ceased processing applications,” Lunde noted.

Minnesota has been grappling with a significant fraud crisis, particularly within the growing Somali community, highlighted by the $250 million Feeding Our Future scandal, which has led to numerous arrests and convictions.

However, the Feeding Our Future incident isn’t the only case of waste and fraud making headlines in Minnesota. The Department of Justice has prosecuted many in various unrelated schemes that have squandered hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.