Minnesota Fraud: Bessent Ramps Up Financial Surveillance

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced a "geographical targeting order" following financial fraud in Minnesota allegedly conducted by Somali businesses. According to the Secretary, the measures include lowering the threshold for suspicious activity reports (SARs) from $10,000 down to $3,000, with which he likely refers to currency transaction reports, as SARs commonly have no monetary threshold. In addition, the Treasury will block anyone on public assistance from making overseas transactions.

It remains unclear whether the new financial surveillance measures will only be implemented for specific businesses and what jurisdictions will be targeted directly. Bessent stated that an official announcement from the Treasury is to follow his statements.

"We are here to follow the money," Bessent tells Fox News, speaking from Minnesota. "We are going to put in a geographical targeting order, so there's something called suspicious activity reports [...], we're lowering that to $3,000, and we're also targeting the two counties here, and we're going to do enhanced surveillance. From now on, anyone who wires money out from one of these money service businesses has to check a box saying whether they are on public assistance, and if you are on public assistance, we are going to start pushing that you cannot wire money out of the country."

Geographical targeting orders (GTOs) allow the Treasury to apply enhanced financial surveillance measures in defined jursidictions in which regular reporting is deemed insufficient, targeting specific types of transactions for a limited amount of time.

"Our generosity as been taken advantage of," Bessent states, to which Fox News host Laura Ingraham responds that "our generosity is funding al-Shabaab and Iranian interests." Ingraham refers to a viral story published in December titled "The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer," which circulated widely over the past few weeks, alleging that millions of Minnesotan welfare Dollars were sent to Somalia to the benefit of Al Qaeda shoot off al-Shabaab via the informal banking network Hawala.

Notably, Hawala banking does not utilize wire transfers, but is used to transfer physical Dollars to parts of the world that lack efficient banking structures.

This would be the second GTO issued by the Trump administration targeting US borders. In March of last year, the Treasury announced a GTO for specific counties near the Mexican border in attempts to counter narcotic trafficking transactions. In Texas and California, courts issued an injunction on the order, deeming it unconstitutional.

Minnesota and the Red Sea Crisis

The story on Somali fraud in Minnesota was first published by City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Institute – a conservative think tank founded by former CIA director William J. Casey.

It was later amplified by 23-year old YouTuber Nick Shirley, who visited Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota, allegedly exposing that the businesses were non-operational, despite receiving Government funding. Shirley's video has since been debunked by several mainstream media outlets who found no evidence of fraud, but did find that Shirley's methodologies were significantly flawed.

Minnesota has the largest Somali population living in the US. Originally occupied by the British in the North and the Italians in the South, Somalis united to form the Somali Republic in 1960. In 1991, with the intensification of armed conflict, the Northern parts of the country restored its British borders, forming what is now known as Somaliland – a country that remains largely unrecognized.

Somaliland is of great geopolitical interest both to the US and Israel. Located at the Horn of Africa bordering Djibouti, home to the US military base Camp Lemonnier, it offers additional access to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, largely controlled by the Yemeni Ansar Allah.

Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, are policing the Red Sea's Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which controls access to the Suez Canal – the most important shipping route for European oil trade next to the Strait of Hormuz and one of the most important commercial canals in the world, connecting the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.

Since October 7th 2023, the Houthis have strategically disrupted shipping vessels linked to Israel, including ships under UK and US flags, demanding a ceasefire and end to Israel's illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip. As a result of the Houthi's bombings and seizures of commercial ships, hundreds of international shipments have been rerouted around South Africa, known as the Red Sea Crisis.

The US has a long history of military engagement in Somalia as a key turning point in international trade, tracing back to the widely popularized "Black Hawk Down" incident in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. Since the outbreak of the Yemeni civil war in 2014, large scale drones strikes against Somalia have drastically increased, with 48 strikes under Obama, 219 strikes under Trump's first term, 51 strikes under Biden, and 128 strikes in 2025 alone.

As reported by The Guardian, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, largely regarded as a blueprint for Trump's second time in office, outlined the recognition of Somaliland as a "hedge against the US’s deteriorating position in Djibouti," leading to speculation that the US under Trump may become the first country to formally recognize Somaliland.

Instead, Israel has now become first to formally recognize Somaliland, increasing concerns that the country may be used for the relocation of Palestinians subject to forced expulsion. Somalia continues to recognize Somaliland as part of its territory and has condemned recent statements by Israeli officials to establish diplomatic presence in the territory as "unacceptable interference" in Somalia's internal affairs.

Welfare fraud in Minnesota still exists. Last year, two individuals were charged over running a fraudulent Autism program, and eight people were charged over a fraudulent housing program. The nonprofit Feeding Our Future was charged with fraud, now listing over 75 defendants. Democratic Governor Tim Walz has since dropped his reelection campaign in light of the ongoing scandal.

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