A Minnesota man who ran an autism treatment center in St. Cloud has pleaded guilty to wire fraud after prosecutors said his business pulled in more than $6 million through fraudulent Medicaid billings.
Federal authorities say part of that money bought a Freightliner semi truck worth more than $100,000. They also say more than $200,000 was sent to Kenya.
That detail stands out. Not just because a truck is a big-ticket purchase, but because it gives the alleged fraud a very concrete shape. This was not an accounting error buried in paperwork. Prosecutors say it was money from a public program meant to help children with autism, then redirected into cash kickbacks, overseas transfers, and personal assets.
How prosecutors say the Minnesota Medicaid fraud scheme worked
According to court records summarized by the U.S. Department of Justice, Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf was the president and CEO of Star Autism Center LLC.
From late 2020 through December 2024, prosecutors say the center claimed to provide one on one therapy through Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program, which serves people under 21 with autism spectrum disorder.
Instead, authorities say the company used unqualified workers, including teenage relatives, and billed for inflated or nonexistent services.
The scheme, prosecutors say, depended on enrollment. Parents in the Somali community were recruited to bring children into the program. If a child did not already have an autism diagnosis, Yussuf and others allegedly worked to get that child qualified for autism services anyway.
Parents were then paid monthly cash kickbacks, with bigger payments tied to bigger state authorizations. In practical terms, that means the public tab kept rising while the care itself was, at least in part, allegedly fake.
Why the guilty plea matters beyond one autism center
Local reporting says Yussuf pleaded guilty on Monday, March 2, in federal court in Minneapolis. The case is part of a broader Minnesota social services fraud investigation that has already drawn major scrutiny around Medicaid oversight in the state.
The Star Tribune reported that Yussuf admitted the business submitted fraudulent and inflated figures, including records that claimed impossible work schedules.
And that is the bigger takeaway. When oversight breaks down, fraud does not stay abstract for long. It turns into missing care, wasted public money, and higher pressure on systems families are supposed to trust.
The official press release was published on the U.S. Department of Justice website.
