U.S. First Assistant Attorney Joe Thompson announced indictments against a half-dozen new suspects in a pair of recently identified welfare fraud schemes.
Speaking at a news conference in Minnesota on Dec. 18, Thompson said investigators are working “around the clock” to dig into “staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”
Five more people have been charged in a “Housing Stabilization Services” program; a couple of those suspects had no connection to Minnesota but came to the state after hearing that “easy money” could be made through that program, Thompson said.
That so-called “fraud tourism” is a new phenomenon among the Minnesota fraud cases, he said, although prosecutors have heard of it occurring elsewhere….