Fraud ignored: Former Homeland Security investigator reveals how fraud cases weren’t prosecuted
Jeremy Christenson, a former Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent, said an investigative task force focused on daycare fraud "just evaporated —just went away into thin air."
Jeremy Christenson, a former Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent, joined Liz Collin on her podcast and explained how cases of cash smuggling and fraudulent day care centers were ignored by prosecutors.
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Christenson, who worked as a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent for 16 years, is also a former air marshal and police officer in Minnesota.
Christensen said many of the cases he investigated “went away into thin air.” He had concerns ever since he started investigating cases of fraud in Minnesota some 10 years ago. But with Somali fraud making national headlines, he had to bring what he witnessed as an investigator to light.
Fraudulent day care investigations, back in 2015
Christenson told Collin that “around 2015, a case landed on my desk from my supervisor. He advised me that the state was running a fraud case regarding daycare fraud in Minneapolis through Health and Human Services or Department of Human Services.”
“Over the next several weeks and months, I attended … planning meetings with this task force of about 20 personnel of various law enforcement agencies, the Health and Human Services, BCA, St. Paul PD, Minneapolis PD and it was all revolving around fraudulent daycares,” Christenson said.
“They were setting up sham daycares, fake bills, fake students, or just enrolling students that never came,” he added.
Christenson also pointed out a suspicious detail: “Never — not one of the daycares I served warrants on, not one person was ever present.”
As for evidence, he explained how investigators found “empty buildings, stacks of invoices, and student records of people that our surveillance showed never went there.”
But what happened next has bothered Christenson ever since. He said the investigative task force “all of sudden, it just evaporated — just went away into thin air.”
As for the investigation into the fraudulent day care centers in the Twin Cities, Christenson said he had “no idea whatever happened with the case.”
Bulk cash smuggling at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport?
Christenson also told Collin that “simultaneously — as this day care fraud case was going,” HSI was also “the lead investigative agency when it comes to bulk cash smuggling. HSI is the lead and that’s one of our primary missions is to combat bulk cash smuggling.”
He also explained how TSA agents have reported seeing two Somali men flying out of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport with millions of dollars in cash almost every week.
Christenson said “agents at the airport ultimately opened up a case because they were getting these referrals as we were stopping and investigating persons leaving the country with this money.”
He noted that the men “weren’t hiding the money. They weren’t secreting it in luggage. They were declaring it. They were registered money service business couriers.”
However, Christenson explained how he and other agents were nonetheless suspicious: “common sense was telling us this money was coming from nefarious sources, from fraud.”
“You can do everything legal, but if the currency you’re carrying is from an illegal source — i.e. drug smuggling, human smuggling, illegal counterfeiting goods, whatever — if you have illegal money, that money is illegal and subject to seizure,” he said.
Christenson said that after a months-long investigation, “personally, I did myself call the U.S. Attorney’s Office and try to get a criminal referral for bulk cash smuggling. Explaining I believe this is nefarious money. It’s going out. It’s from illegitimate sources.”
But the response from the U.S. Attorney’s office troubled him. “I was politely told, ‘no —and they’re doing everything legal, they’re money couriers, and they’re registered.”
“And I’m like, nah, I don’t buy it. I know, illegal money is still illegal money … I only responded, I believe, three times, myself personally. But our agents responded numerous times to the airport for these calls, and we documented it all. So there are documents out there relating to this, and they just need to be exposed,” Christenson said.
Investigations without prosecutions
Christenson said, “In my 16 years of specializing with HSI, I presented multiple immigration fraud cases where persons had lied, cheated, misconstrued information on immigration applications and documents from all different forms of federal documents.”
But it was the response, or lack of response, from prosecutors that bothered Christenson even more.
“In my experience — my personal experience — I never once had those accepted for prosecution for immigration fraud from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, not one,” he added.
“And I presented some pretty damning cases that involved people deaths, circumstances where homicides were involved, circumstances where children were killed and, and not one time was ever a case prosecuted,” Christenson said.
He also summed up more recent developments by saying, “the fraud coming out of the Somali community is just unbelievable.”
Alpha News reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office but did not receive a response.
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