The founder of Star Autism Center admitted that he began the $6 million scam after "investors" approached him and provided families from the Somali community to bilk the federal government out of taxpayer cash.
Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf was only 22 years old when he started running the scheme after dropping out of St. Cloud Technical College in Aug. 2020.
The more services the families signed up for, the more they would receive in kickback payments.
Yussuf said he registered his center with the Minnesota Secretary of State and was able to enroll as an Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program provider with the Minnesota Department of Human Services on the very same day.
Court documents said that some of the workers at the Star Autism Center were unqualified family members as young as 18 years old.
Yussuf admitted that he didn't know anyone with autism, so the "investors" arranged for families in the Minneapolis Somali community to sign up for the autism services.
Some of the families received monthly kickback payments for signing up, and Yussuf said that many had falsified diagnoses obtained for the sake of the scam. The more services the families signed up for, the more they would receive in kickback payments.
Yussuf and his partners then sought and gained reimbursement for the faked services from Medicaid and bilked the federal government out of $6 million over four years.
The fake autism center CEO pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and faces five years in prison once he is sentenced.
Yussuf sent more than $200K of the stolen funds to Kenya, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.
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Prosecutors say they are planning to indict Yussuf's "investors" in the scam.
A Blaze News request for comment from the Minnesota Sec. of State's office was not immediately returned.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services released the following statement via email to Blaze News:
"The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) acts aggressively to detect and prevent fraud and shuts off money to providers when credible allegations of fraud come to light," the statement read. "When we uncover credible evidence of fraud, we provide that information to our law enforcement partners in the US Attorney’s Office and the State Attorney General’s Office where decisions are made about charges and prosecutions."
The Trump administration is investigating Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Tim Walz (Minn.) for possible obstruction of justice related to the Somali community schemes.
Editor's note: This article has been edited after publication to include a statement from the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
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