Federal authorities announced criminal charges against 15 defendants accused of looting $90 million from Minnesota's state-run Medicaid programs, and one suspect allegedly jumped off a fourth-story balcony to escape arrest before the FBI tracked him down hours later.

Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald, who leads the National Fraud Enforcement Division, told reporters in Minneapolis that the cases represent the "highest loss amount ever charged in a Medicaid case." Prosecutors described one of the alleged schemes as the "largest autism fraud scheme ever," the New York Post reported.

The charges span seven state-managed Medicaid programs. And the $90 million may be just the beginning. McDonald said the total sum stolen statewide from taxpayer-funded programs would likely top $9 billion, a figure first floated in December by then-U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Joe Thompson.

A defendant on the run, briefly

The most dramatic moment came Thursday morning, when defendant Muhammad Omar allegedly evaded federal agents by leaping from a fourth-story balcony. The FBI asked the public for help locating him. By Thursday evening, FBI Director Kash Patel announced Omar was in custody.

"After today's interagency press conference announcing 15 public healthcare fraud indictments in Minnesota, the below subject who was on the run, Muhammad Omar, has now been arrested."

Omar stands accused of scheming taxpayers out of more than $3.6 million by filing false Medicaid claims while running two home health care companies in Minnesota from 2022 to 2025. Federal officials allege he used $150,000 of "fraudulently obtained" funds to invest in real estate in Nairobi, Kenya, and another $60,000 to lease a Mercedes-Benz.

The indictment paints a grim picture. McDonald said one patient under Omar's supposed care was meant to receive round-the-clock services.

"One patient was supposed to be receiving 24-hour care... but he was actually being serviced by a fraudster and received no services. This patient was later found dead."

A patient found dead while a defendant allegedly pocketed the money meant for his care. That is the human cost of fraud at this scale, not an abstraction about program integrity, but a person who needed help and got none.

The largest autism fraud scheme ever charged

The single biggest alleged scheme involved defendants Shamso Ahmed Hassan and Hanaan Mursal Yusuf, who prosecutors say ran a $46.6 million fraud through two centers, Smart Therapy Center and Star Autism Center. The pair allegedly paid kickbacks to parents who brought children to centers supposedly treating autism spectrum disorder, then billed Minnesota Medicaid's Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention Program for services that were not reimbursable.

The numbers behind that program tell their own story. In 2018, the program's payments totaled just over $600,000. By 2025, they had exploded past $400 million. That kind of trajectory, a roughly 660-fold increase in seven years, should have set off alarms long before federal prosecutors had to step in.

The political fight over accountability in Minnesota's fraud scandals has been brewing for months, with state Democrats resisting calls for deeper investigation into how the money disappeared under their watch.

Program after program drained dry

The autism scheme was not the only alleged operation. Charles Healey and Katherin Larsen-Guthmiller face charges in a $22.7 million fraud and money laundering scheme. They allegedly claimed to provide home support services for people with brain injuries seeking to live independently.

Deborah Hodges, based in Philadelphia, hundreds of miles from Minnesota, allegedly submitted $5.3 million in fraudulent claims to the state's Housing Stabilization Services Program. That program saw its payments rise from more than $26 million in 2021 to more than $104 million by 2024.

It no longer exists. McDonald said it closed on October 31, 2025.

"One of the programs has been completely shut down because there's no money left: It's all gone."

A taxpayer-funded program designed to help vulnerable people with housing, emptied out by alleged fraudsters and shuttered. The people it was supposed to serve are left with nothing.

Meanwhile, Fahima Mahamud was indicted for wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States for allegedly taking $5.4 million in federal funding while operating what prosecutors described as a fake child care center, Future Leaders Early Learning, in Minneapolis. The pattern of FBI raids on fraudulent learning centers in Minneapolis has become disturbingly familiar.

Another defendant, Ahmed Kadar, allegedly laundered $400,000 and defrauded Medicaid out of $1 million by inflating hours for purported services to disabled persons.

Spending curves that defy explanation

The spending data across multiple Minnesota programs reads less like a budget and more like a heist in slow motion. The Integrated Community Supports Program rose from around $4.2 million in 2021 to more than $183 million by 2025. The Individualized Home Supports Program went from paying out more than $100 million in 2018 to more than $700 million by 2025.

These are not small fluctuations driven by population growth or expanding eligibility. These are vertical spending curves that, in hindsight, practically advertise the presence of organized fraud. McDonald said investigators were tipped off after Medicaid billing amounts from Minnesota's housing stabilization services and autism programs climbed into the hundreds of millions.

The question taxpayers should be asking is why it took so long. The Trump administration has made healthcare fraud enforcement a visible priority, but the sheer scale of what was allowed to accumulate in Minnesota points to years of inadequate oversight at the state level.

Federal officials respond

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. framed the charges in terms of who ultimately pays the price, taxpayers and the vulnerable populations the programs were created to help.

"Investigators uncovered brazen schemes that billed taxpayers for nonexistent services, fraudulent diagnoses, and fake care, while criminals enriched themselves at public expense. When criminals exploit these programs, taxpayers lose billions and vulnerable children lose their access to care."

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced that $350 million in federal reimbursements for the Minnesota programs have been deferred. That deferral is a direct consequence of the fraud, and it means legitimate providers and patients may also feel the squeeze because bad actors were allowed to operate for years.

The administration's broader push to restructure accountability within HHS takes on added weight against this backdrop. When billions vanish from programs meant for disabled children and brain-injury patients, the bureaucratic status quo is not working.

McDonald was blunt about what lies ahead. Asked whether the $9 billion fraud estimate was realistic, he did not hedge.

"I wouldn't be surprised if that number is accurate or even small. At the end of all of our work, we'll tally it all up, and we'll tell you exactly how much was stolen from the American people."

Minnesota's fraud problem is not new. A convicted ringleader in a separate $250 million COVID-era meal fraud case has already implicated political figures in the state's culture of lax oversight. The pattern keeps repeating: massive public spending, minimal guardrails, and defendants who treat taxpayer money like a personal ATM.

A warning to the rest

McDonald closed with a message aimed squarely at anyone still running a similar operation in Minnesota or elsewhere.

"My message to the fraudsters is this: Eat, drink, and be merry today because your days of frolicking and freedom are numbered."

Fifteen defendants now face federal charges. One program is already gone, drained to zero. A patient is dead. And the final tally, by the government's own estimate, may dwarf what has been charged so far.

When a state lets its Medicaid spending multiply by orders of magnitude without asking hard questions, it is not compassion. It is an invitation, and the people who accepted it stole from the most vulnerable Americans to buy real estate in Kenya and lease luxury cars. The fraud was brazen because the oversight was absent.