The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office has charged five Twin Cities residents in connection to over $10 million in Medicaid fraud, which investigators say they effectuated via overbilling or billing for transportation or home care services not provided, according to charges filed in Hennepin County District Court this week.
The charges involve two ongoing cases that include accusations that the participants misused public funds to purchase luxury cars, furnishings, and designer clothing and accessories, as well as allegations that the participants received illegal kickbacks.
Abdifatah Abdulkadir Yusuf, 43, and Lul Mohamud Ahmed, 39, who both share an address in Blaine, jointly own and operate Promise Health Services LLC, which investigators with the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) of the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office say is a “sham” entity operating out of a mailbox in Northeast Minneapolis.
Charges say the pair failed to maintain documentation of services billed and that when documentation did exist, it was largely fraudulent. Yusuf is accused of defrauding the Medicaid program of $7,275,517, and Ahmed is accused of defrauding the program of $284,640.
The charges say Yusuf and Ahmed are part of a criminal enterprise that involves co-conspirators, including relatives and other persons who operate several other named health or home care businesses. “Promise” was unlawfully commingled with documentation from other Medicaid-funded businesses run, in part, by Yusuf, Ahmed, and their family members.
Yusuf has been charged with seven felony counts including racketeering, and six counts of abetting theft by swindle of over $35,000 on each count.
Ahmed has been charged with two felony counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle of over $35,000 on each count.
A connected party, Abdiweli Abdirisak Mohamud, 48, of Columbia Heights has been charged with felony counts of racketeering, five counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle, and one count of aiding and abetting theft by false representation involving fraudulently billed personal care assistant (PCA) services through his business Minnesota Home Health Care LLC. Mohamud is accused of receiving over $1.8 million in Medicaid funds his company was not entitled to.
In a second case, investigators say Charles Omato, 44, of Golden Valley and LaTonia Latrice Jackson, 52, of north Minneapolis bilked Medicaid out of over $1.4 million and $1.8 million, respectively, through fraudulent billings in their non-emergency medical transportation company, Driving Miss Daisy, as far back as 2018.
Omato faces five felony counts of aiding and abetting theft by false representation, Jackson faces seven felony counts on the same charges.
Note: All five defendants are charged by summons ordering them to appear in court on future dates, as opposed to being charged via arrest warrants. Therefore, there are no current booking photos available.
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Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
Crime Watch MN
Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
