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PDB Afternoon Bulletin | December 2nd, 2025: Minnesota Taxpayers May Be Funding Somali Terrorists & Kyiv Targets Moscow’s Tankers Again
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Looking to diversify and protect your hard earned assets. Well, schedule a free consultation with the Birch Gold group. They're the precious metals specialists. Just text PDB to the number 989898 and you'll receive a free no obligation information kit. And you'll learn how to convert an existing IRA or a 401k into a gold IRA. Again, text PDB to 989898. Foreign It's Tuesday 2nd December. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, a major investigation out of the U. S. State of Minnesota. City Journal reports that massive welfare fraud rings may have funneled U. S. Taxpayer dollars through Somali money networks and potentially into the hands of the terrorist group Al Shabaab. Later in the show, an update on Kiev's campaign against Russia's so called shadow fleet. Ukraine claims another strike, this time on a Russian flag tanker off the Turkish coast. That's the third hit in less than a week. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. We're starting off with a fascinating piece of investigative reporting and a warning about how gaps in America's own social welfare programs may be opening the door to something, well, more nefarious than simple fraud. City Journal has published a detailed expose digging into what it calls a vast welfare fraud network operating out of Minnesota. One that allegedly siphoned off tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money. And in some cases portions of that cash may have been routed overseas to Somalia, where investigators believe some of it ultimately reached the terrorist group Al Shabaab. Now, we should be clear right up front, these allegations are still being investigated and not every detail has been confirmed publicly by law enforcement. But the outlines of the story and the scale of the fraud inside Minnesota's social services programs are now well documented. And the possibility that even a fraction of US Taxpayer money could have ended up in the hands of a terrorist organization makes this more than a local scandal. It makes it a national security issue. At the center of the controversy is Minnesota's Medicaid funded housing stabilization Services program. That's a safety net initiative designed to help seniors, disabled Minnesotans and others at risk of homelessness. When the program was launched, state officials projected it might pay out around $2.6 million a year. Instead, investigators say those payouts exploded into the tens of millions and then kept climbing. According to the reporting, dozens of pop up service companies, many registered by individuals inside the state's large Somali American community, began billing Medicaid for, quote, housing support services that in many cases appear to have been minimal or entirely fictitious. And it didn't stop with housing support. The reporters traced similar patterns across several social service programs, autism therapy programs, mental health rehabilitation, even food nutrition programs. In September of this year, the Justice Department unsealed multiple indictments tied to the housing Stabilization Services fraud. But according to the City Journal investigation, those indictments may only scratch the surface. Their sources, including a former federal counterterrorism Task force detective, say that as much as 20 million in welfare derived funds moved through hawala networks in a single year. Now, if you're not familiar with hawalas, they're informal money transfer systems common in parts of Africa and the Middle East. In short, a customer hands over cash to someone in Minnesota, a phone call is made, and someone in Somalia pays out the equivalent amount. They operate largely on trust networks, clan based, family based, and and function outside of traditional banks. That means no swift codes, no bank records, no formal oversight. Sometimes they're used for legitimate remittances. But they're also notoriously difficult to investigate, and that's part of the concern here. According to the reporting, as investigators traced these money flows back to Minnesota, they kept finding the same pattern, individuals receiving state or federal benefits who were also sending significant sums overseas. And once that money arrived in Somalia, some of those funds may have been taxed or skimmed by Al Shabaab, which controls large parts of the local economy and often extorts fees from money transfer shops and merchants. Now, we don't have a public indictment accusing anyone in Minnesota of intentionally funding terrorism, but experts quoted in the article say the effect can be the same. If the money is moving through systems controlled by Al Shabaab, the group takes a cut. And if the source of that money is US Welfare programs, while the taxpayer ends up subsidizing a foreign terror organization. Beyond the terrorism angle, the investigation raises questions about oversight inside Minnesota's social services infrastructure. The report suggests that state officials ignored warnings, downplayed red flags, and in some cases avoided scrutiny of certain fraud patterns out of fear of appearing discriminatory. And that, honestly, might be the most concerning part of all. Not just the fraud itself, but the lack of political or bureaucratic willingness to acknowledge it. This story is developing and we're following it closely. There are still major unanswered questions, of course, about how far the fraud networks extend, how much money actually flowed overseas, and whether other states may have similar vulnerabilities. As an aside, this weekend on the PDB Situation Report, we'll Be speaking with Ryan Thorpe, one of the authors of this City Journal expose. He'll walk us through what he uncovered, what investigators told him and where this story goes next. You'll want to tune in for that. All right, coming up next, another blow to Russia's shadow fleet. Ukraine says a tanker off Turkey was damaged overnight, part of Keeves effort to degrade Moscow's under the radar oil trade. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here with a tip on how to feed your family right this holiday season. Look, this time of year, everything gets busier. Of course, schedules get busier. Travel, shipping, and the grocery stores. If you want to take one shopping burden off your plate, well, Tritails Beef is the place to go. And they've got a straightforward solution. Look, you've heard me talk about Tri Tails. It's a fifth generation Texas ranching family delivering the most delicious beef you've ever had from their property to your door. Now, this holiday season, the Tri Tails I'll be home for Christmas box. Well, it's all about steaks. It's got the cuts you actually want when the house starts to fill up. You know what I'm talking about. Ribeyes and strips and fillets. Premium Angus raised on a Texas ranch that still does things the right way. And right now, it's 15% off. But you have to hurry. The deadline to ship before Christmas is is December 14th. If you want the holidays less stressful and more delicious, it's simple. Just turn to trytales Beef. And if you're thinking about gifts, well, Tritails also offers all sorts of gift packages that you can send to family or friends. Practical and definitely sure to be enjoyed. Go to tritails beef.com once again, that's tritails beef.com. mike Baker here. Well, here we go. The holidays will be here before you know it. And for many families, of course, that means excitement. But for many, it also means a little stress. Between gifts and travel and higher prices. It is easy to feel overwhelmed, right? Especially if you're already relying on credit cards to cover the basics. 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Welcome back to the Afternoon Bulletin. Ukraine didn't make us wait long for an answer to the question that we posed on today's pdb. We would keep strike more of Russia's illicit crude tankers. Well, a third vessel was attacked in the Black Sea, this time a ship allegedly carrying Sunflower Oil but operating in the same waters as Moscow's shadow fleet. When we left off, Ukraine had used naval drones to strike two Russian linked tankers, the Karos and the Virat, near Turkey's northern coast. Both were described by Western sanctions databases as part of Russia's shadow fleet. It's the murky sanctions busting workhorses that move crude outside the Western financial and insurance system. For Ukraine, the goal was clear hit the oil logistics that keep the Kremlin's war machine funded. Now we're in the quote what happens next phase. And it's unfolding almost exactly along the lines that we had Talked about today. Turkey's maritime authority said another Russian flag tanker, the Midvolga 2 was attacked by a drone about 80 miles off the Turkish coast while sailing from Russia toward Georgia. Ankara said the 13 crew members were unharmed and it did not request assistance. That makes The Mid Volga 2 the third Russian tanker targeted in a week's time after Ukraine's naval drones hit the Karos and Virod inside Turkey's exclusive economic zone over the weekend. But the Sunflower Oil manifest is in part what's raising eyebrows. The Turkish authorities are emphasizing it, but analysts who track sanctions evasion say the designation reads like a familiar cover story. In an ecosystem built on misdeclared cargoes and falsified paperwork and opaque ownership structures, Russia's shadow fleet, the same gray market network that Kos and Vera were part of, runs on tankers that routinely switch flags, operate under shell companies, turn off their transponders and obscure their cargo origins through ship to ship transfers. In that context, a tanker moving similar routes in the same operational patterns at the exact moment Ukraine's targeting sanctioned busting crude carriers is naturally being viewed as part of the same illicit logistics chain. So on paper, yeah, it's Sunflower Oil. In practice, it looks like a lot like a shadow fleet vessel. What's changed since the first two strikes is not just the number of tankers, but. But who's speaking up? Turkish President Erdogan condemned the attacks on the Karos and the Virat as a quote, worrying escalation, arguing they threaten navigational safety and the environment. In Turkey's exclusive economic zone, the Turkish President is sending two messages at once, signaling to Ukraine that Ankara does not want its waters turned into a battlefield, and to Russia and everyone else that Turkey intends to maintain control over the Black Sea corridor that feeds the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. This morning I said the key thing to watch was whether Ukraine would repeat the tactic. Whether this was a one time message or the opening act of a new front. Three tankers in roughly a week. Well, that's beginning to look less like a signal and more like a pattern. You have to remember what's at stake. According to data cited by a Helsinki based think tank, more than 100 vessels tied to Russia's shadow fleet sailed under false flags in the first nine months of this year, carrying more than 12 million tons of crude worth over $5 billion. This is an industrial scale workaround that keeps billions flowing into Moscow's war chest despite Western caps and embargoes. If Ukraine can steadily impose real risk on that network, it can squeeze the revenue stream that has proved resilient under sanctions. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Tuesday 2nd December. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB the first tv.com and to listen to the show ad free. Well, that's simple. You can do that. It's very easy. Just become a premium member of the President's Daily brief by visiting PDB premium.com I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.
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