The Somali Welfare Fraud Reaches All The Way To The UN

Somali UN ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman was tied to Cincinnati-based Medicaid billing schemes with links to terrorism financing!

I went on the air in Cincinnati with my close friend and former classmate from Xavier University, Bill Cunningham, to speak plainly about why this matters.

Bill captured the scale of the failure in one sentence when he said, “What started off as two million dollars is now four hundred million dollars in one state.”

That figure matters because it tells you this was not a mistake. It was allowed to grow.

I told Bill what every taxpayer understands. “We all pay. And that’s where we start.” Four hundred million dollars is not abstract. It is public money taken from families who played by the rules.

This was not about helping children. I said on air that “they were paying millions of dollars for phantom operations,” daycares that existed on paper but not in reality. And the destination of that money raises the stakes far beyond bookkeeping, because “that money was being laundered to underwrite terrorist operations across the globe.”

Bill pressed the unavoidable question, asking me directly, “So you’re saying, Ken Blackwell, the American taxpayer is funding Al Shabaab, Al Qaeda, and terrorist groups with our money.”

When a scheme reaches this scale, pretending otherwise is dishonest.

What makes this even more disturbing is who was involved. Bill laid out that a Somali UN ambassador was connected to healthcare and transport operations right here in Cincinnati, billing Medicaid through fictitious clinics and PO boxes.

When diplomatic titles intersect with public benefits fraud in an American city, the response should be immediate and relentless.

This was waved away in Ohio as “the cost of doing business” by Gov. Mike DeWine, an anti-MAGA Republican, at his recent press conference.

I rejected that excuse outright! “That is not a good answer.” Four hundred million dollars is not the cost of doing business. It is the cost of not enforcing the law.

And let me be unmistakably clear about something else I said on the air. When officials suggest certain crimes should be ignored because of who commits them, “that’s bull crap!” This is the United States of America.

The law applies to everyone, all should be judged by the content of their character.

That is why I made this principle clear. “I don’t let ethnicity or race or nationality become a cover for wrongdoing.” Real compassion protects innocent families.

It does not shield criminals or look the other way when a UN ambassador is tied to fraud.

I also spoke directly about Ohio. I acknowledged that “the governor has put in place trap doors to sort of cut down on this sort of shenanigans,” but I was equally clear that “I would run this operation through the wash again because it is a very stained operation.”

When fraud reaches hundreds of millions of dollars, partial fixes are not enough.

Bill reminded listeners who pays the real price when fraud is tolerated, saying that “those who have autistic kids, those with real daycare needs, and those without proper housing are the ones directly suffering.”

Every dollar stolen is a dollar taken from someone who truly needs help.

And the rule governing all of this is simple. “If you reward bad behavior, you’re going to get more damn bad behavior.” That is how two million dollars becomes four hundred million dollars.

Bill and I go back a long way. We went to Xavier together. We love this city and this country. And we both know that accountability is not optional.

When Somalia-linked fraud tied to a UN ambassador is dismissed as the cost of doing business, the system is not being managed… It is being looted!