Cash Smuggled to Terrorists in Middle East from U.S. Airport that Gave Somali Muslims Security Tours

Years after Judicial Watch exposed the Obama administration’s special behind-the-scenes tours for Somali Muslims at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, millions of dollars in cash are being smuggled weekly from the facility to the Middle East. Some of the money is being funneled to a region of Somalia that is controlled by the Al Shabaab terrorist group, according to a disturbing months-long investigation conducted by a national media outlet. “These cloak-and-dagger scenarios now happen almost weekly at MSP,” the probe found. “The money is usually headed to the Middle East, Dubai and points beyond. Sources said last year alone, more than $100 million in cash left MSP in carry-on luggage.” The investigation is based on public records and nearly a dozen government sources with direct knowledge of the scheme.

A national expert on the illicit cash transfers helped track where the money is going once it leaves Minneapolis stuffed in suitcases. His name is Glen Kerns, a former Seattle police detective who spent 15 years on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) joint terrorist task force. Kerns discovered that some of the cash is being funneled to a part of Somalia dominated by Al Shabab, an Al Qaeda affiliate that has taken over many rural southern and central areas of the African nation. Kerns says some of the individuals sending large amounts of cash abroad receive taxpayer-funded government assistance in the United States. Sources interviewed for the story say it’s “welfare fraud,” mostly involving government-subsidized daycare. A separate investigation conducted by the same media outlet five years ago, uncovered huge daycare fraud in Minnesota that exposed how businesses were gaming the system to steal millions in government subsidies meant to help poor families with childcare expenses.

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