The U.S. Treasury Department said it is launching multiple investigations into money service businesses in Minnesota as part of a broader effort to track and disrupt alleged large-scale Somali-linked fraud.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday night that the Trump administration is moving federal resources into Minnesota to investigate what he described as a record-setting Somali fraud operation, including the role of money wiring services suspected of transferring illicit funds overseas.
Bessent made the announcement during an appearance with Laura Ingraham on Fox News, stating that the Treasury Department will deploy its financial intelligence tools to trace the flow of money tied to the alleged scheme.
“This is an outrage. President Trump is outraged. I’m outraged. The whole administration is outraged,” Bessent said. “We are here to follow the money because that’s what Treasury does. We have done that for years. We did it with the Mafia. We have done it with the cartels, and now we are going to do it with these Somali fraudsters.”
Bessent said Treasury will rely on the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, to examine financial activity connected to the alleged fraud. FinCEN is responsible for safeguarding the U.S. financial system by combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and other illicit financial activity through the collection and analysis of financial intelligence.
According to Bessent, Treasury is initiating investigations into four money service businesses suspected of wiring large amounts of stolen funds out of the United States.
“Treasury has something called FinCEN, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. We are coming in, and we’re coming in tomorrow,” Bessent said. “We are announcing four investigations into money service businesses that we believe may have wired money out of the country, a lot of the ill-gotten stolen money over to the Middle East, over to Somalia. We’ll see where that’s going.”
He added, “We’re announcing investigations into four of those money service businesses.”
Bessent said the department will issue a geographical targeting order focused on two Minnesota counties and lower the threshold for mandatory suspicious activity reports on wire transfers.
“There’s something called suspicious activity report. If a certain amount of money gets wired anywhere. We’re lowering that to 3,000, and we’re also targeting the two counties here, and we’re going to do enhanced surveillance,” he said.
Bessent also announced a new disclosure requirement for individuals using the targeted money service businesses.
“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,” he said.
A clip of the announcement was shared publicly by Laura Ingraham, who reported that Treasury and the IRS are deploying expanded enforcement resources in Minnesota as part of the investigation, including enhanced financial monitoring. The post stated that multiple investigations were being launched into money service businesses accused of wiring funds to the Middle East and Somalia and can be viewed in an X post.
Treasury officials have not yet disclosed the names of the money service businesses under investigation or provided a timeline for potential enforcement actions.
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