A massive welfare-fraud scandal, involving millions of dollars in stolen taxpayer money, is now unfolding in Maine, mirroring the billion-dollar criminal scam that is currently rocking Minnesota.
A former insider has stepped forward alleging that Gateway Community Services, a Somali-owned company in Maine, systematically falsified Medicaid billing records in a scheme eerily similar to the one federal prosecutors say looted Minnesota taxpayers and helped fuel criminal networks.
Those involved in the fraud scheme, according to ICE, funneled stolen taxpayer money to Al-Shabaab, a designated terrorist organization.
Whistleblower: “It just got worse and worse”
Christopher Bernardini, a former “billing guru” for Gateway, told NewsNation that the organization routinely billed Maine’s Medicaid program for services never provided.
“I have a passion for helping people, and I thought that we were doing the right thing this whole time,” Bernardini said.
“When I had clients calling me to tell me their staff hadn’t shown up, and I was told to bill those hours anyway.
“It just got worse and worse until I started really putting up a stink.”
He also said the company manipulated its electronic monitoring system to make it appear that field workers were visiting vulnerable clients when they weren’t.
Gateway received $28.8 million in Medicaid funds, according to documents obtained by The Maine Wire.
The company’s owner, Abdullahi Ali, reportedly has political ties in Somalia.
Ali was billing MaineCare after returning to Somalia to run to be the Warlord of Jubaland.
Bernardini says Ali bragged about using stolen taxpayer money to buy weapons and fund a militia in Somalia.
He noted that “winners” of elections in Jubaland are determined by “those who have the most guns.”
“He needed to buy a paramilitary organization and paramilitary support in order to ‘win’ that election,” Bernardini explains.
Yet, despite funneling millions in stolen funds into Somalia, Ali lost the election, accoridn to Bernardini.
The whistleblower also revealed that Maine’s Democrat Governor Janet Mills has been “in cahoots” with Ali, Gateway Community Services, and other Somali fraudsters.
WATCH:
Democrats Cry “Racism” as Another Scandal Emerges
Instead of demanding answers, Maine Democrats have smeared GOP gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles as a racist for raising concerns about the allegations.
This is the exact pattern that played out in Minnesota: massive, systemic fraud followed by Democrats attacking anyone who asks questions.
Meanwhile in Minnesota: ICE Moves In After $1 Billion in Fraud
As Maine deals with Gateway’s alleged scheme, federal immigration agents are swarming Minneapolis to pursue suspects tied to Minnesota’s unprecedented welfare theft, a scandal that triggered at least three federal prosecutions and exposed deep failures in Democrat Gov. Tim Walz’s administration.
Whistleblowers accused Walz of “systemic retaliation” for trying to stop the fraud, and ICE confirmed that millions may have been funneled toward Somali criminal networks.
Walz even admitted that Minnesota “attracts criminals,” though he bristled when repeatedly pressed on why his state became ground zero for massive organized fraud.
Ilhan Omar: Somalis Were the “Victims”
Meanwhile, as the scandal continues to unravel, Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is now insisting that Somalis were the “victims” of the unprecedented fraud scam in Minnesota.
Omar, long under scrutiny for her tight ties to Minnesota’s Somali community, has furiously pushed back on concerns about Somali involvement.
However, the radical congresswoman is now doing so by addressing the facts, but by claiming, without evidence, that Somalis are the victims of the scandal.
“We also could have benefited from the program and the money that was stolen,” Omar said in a recent CBS interview, insisting that Somalis were also harmed.
She expressed anger that the scandal put a “spotlight” on Somali fraud, and said her community is “upset and angry,” not at the criminals, but at the scrutiny.
WATCH:
Omar’s narrative stands in stark contrast to the mounting evidence in both Minnesota and now Maine.
A National Pattern or a Massive Coincidence?
In each case:
• Somali-run organizations received enormous sums of taxpayer money.
• Oversight mechanisms failed — repeatedly.
• Democrat officials dismissed red flags as “racism.”
• Whistleblowers faced retaliation.
• Federal agents ultimately had to intervene.
Now, Maine may be facing its own version of the same scandal.
Questions Democrats Are Desperate to Avoid
If the allegations against Gateway are true, they raise serious national questions:
• How many states have been defrauded in similar ways?
• How much taxpayer money has been siphoned through weak oversight into foreign networks?
• And why do Democratic officials respond to every warning by attacking the whistleblowers instead of the criminals?
Unsurprisingly, allegations have also emerged that Somali fraudsters have been pumping stolen taxpayer cash into the election campaigns of several Minnesota Democrats, as Slay News previously reported.
Gateway Community Services and Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services have not responded to the allegations.
The pattern is becoming impossible to ignore, and the political excuses are wearing thin.
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