$350 million walked out of Minneapolis airport in carry-on luggage last year.
A Democrat lawmaker this week told a committee that number is a lie.
He said it to the wrong woman.
Minnesota Welfare Fraud Suspects Have Been Flying Cash Out of MSP for a Decade
Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) ranks 16th in passenger traffic nationwide.
But in 2024, $343 million left MSP in carry-on luggage headed for foreign countries.
In 2025, that number grew to $350 million – higher than any other airport in the nation.
More than JFK.
More than LAX.
More than Chicago O'Hare.
State Rep. Kristin Robbins, chair of the House Fraud Prevention Committee, told her colleagues this week that a January TSA bulletin confirmed the cash flows out of MSP had tripled since the problem was first documented in 2015.
This isn't a new story – it just keeps getting bigger.
Fox 9 investigators were chasing suitcase-carrying travelers through MSP checkpoints back in 2018, documenting passengers moving as much as $1 million in a single carry-on.
All of it legal – as long as you fill out a form.
Former terrorism investigator Glen Kerns tracked those early cash flows and found something worse than fraud: some of the money was being funneled through Hawala networks into a region of Somalia controlled by the al-Shabaab terrorist group.
By 2016, $84 million a year was already leaving the state.
Nobody stopped it.
Minneapolis Democrat Called the Somali Cash Flights a Lie. A Retired TSA Agent Was in That Room.
Minnesota State Rep. Steve Elkins sat at that committee table and told the room it was "completely implausible" that hundreds of millions in cash could leave MSP undetected.
The retired TSA agent didn't flinch.
"To the gentleman that's questioning this, I feel like you're questioning my integrity," she said.
She watched it happen firsthand – suitcases packed with cash, travelers filling out a single form for amounts over $10,000 and walking right through security.
Her verdict on the official numbers: they're too low.
"I really think the money that goes through the airport is on the low end, because we've never actually counted the money," she told the committee.
Robbins put the legal framework plainly for Elkins: carriers declare amounts over $10,000, fill out the required government form, and walk onto the plane.
"It is absolutely legal, and that's what we are trying to make sure the public understands," she said.
Legal doesn't mean clean.
Homeland Security Investigations is now probing the cash flows as part of a broader multibillion-dollar fraud investigation – one that produced the largest pandemic fraud conviction in American history.
Aimee Bock, founder of Feeding Our Future, was convicted on all counts in March 2025 for stealing $250 million meant to feed Minnesota children.
The fraud involved claiming to have served 91 million meals to children across the state.
None of those meals were ever served.
What the money bought instead: luxury cars, international travel, real estate in Kenya and Turkey, and a $120,000 cash bribe delivered to a federal juror in a Hallmark gift bag.
As of early 2026, 56 of 79 indicted defendants had pleaded guilty – with five still fugitives in Africa.
While Minnesota Taxpayers Worked, Mogadishu Was Getting a Skyline
Here's what every taxpayer in Minnesota deserves to hear.
Remittances now equal roughly 25% of Somalia's entire GDP.
Mogadishu – a city that spent decades in rubble – is booming.
Cranes on the skyline.
New apartment complexes, office towers, and hotels rising out of neighborhoods that were ruins a decade ago.
Somali diaspora investment reports from 2025 describe construction as the top destination for money flowing back home from cities like Minneapolis.
Your child care subsidies, your Medicaid dollars, your pandemic relief money – it didn't vanish into thin air.
It got converted to cash, walked through MSP in a carry-on bag, and flew to Mogadishu to build someone else's city.
Tim Walz did nothing about it for years, then announced he wasn't running for reelection and walked away from the disaster.
JD Vance froze $259 million in Minnesota Medicaid reimbursements on February 25, gave Walz 60 days to produce a corrective action plan, and this Friday chaired the inaugural meeting of the new Task Force to Eliminate Fraud at the White House – with half the Cabinet in the room.
"The fact that there are so many people handing out millions and billions of dollars of federal Medicaid money without even confirming that they're doing the thing that they say that they're doing – it's a disgrace," Vance said.
Independent investigators put Minnesota's total fraud exposure between $9 billion and $20 billion.
That retired TSA agent spent her career watching the money leave.
Steve Elkins spent this week calling her a liar.
Trump and Vance are finally doing something about it.
Sources:
- Elyse Apel, "Millions in Cash Leaving Minneapolis Airport Draw Lawmakers' Scrutiny," The Center Square, March 27, 2026.
- "Feds Probe Hundreds of Millions in Suspected Somali Cash in Luggage Leaving Minneapolis Airport," Just the News, January 7, 2026.
- "Millions of Dollars in Suitcases Fly Out of MSP, But Why?" Fox 9 Investigators, May 14, 2018.
- "Minnesota Remains Front Line in Vance's War on Fraud; Walz Given 60 Days to Clean Up the Systems," Fox News, February 25, 2026.
- "Vance Holds First Meeting of a New Anti-Fraud Task Force Targeting Benefit Programs," Associated Press, March 27, 2026.
- "Feeding Our Future Head Aimee Bock Convicted on All Fraud Charges," Department of Justice, March 19, 2025.
- "Why the Somali Diaspora Is Investing Back Home in 2025," Build Hub Somalia, April 2025.
