Stealing from the taxpayer has now become a multi-billion-dollar industry in America – and the Trump administration is finally doing something about it.
From the Department of Government Efficiency to Vice President JD Vance’s task force, the Trump administration has made combatting fraud a top priority. Here are just a few of the most astonishing fraud schemes uncovered so far.
750,000 fraudsters stealing $2.2 billion from Obamacare
Since its passage in 2010, Obamacare has been a magnet for scammers, resulting in higher tax bills for Americans and higher premiums in the private insurance market. But the Trump administration is finally doing something about it.
On September 21, Vice President Vance announced that the White House Fraud Task Force would be removing 750,000 enrollees from the program, saving taxpayers an estimated $2.2 billion.
While elected Democrats and the liberal media have claimed that the administration is simply ripping people off their insurance, that hardly appears to be the case. According to Vance, brokers have been enrolling people in Obamacare who do not qualify for subsidies or in some cases do not even exist.
The brokers then collect lucrative commission payments from insurance companies.
“In one case we found a fraud ring that had 40 agents, 40 brokerage agents who had funneled 50,000 people into the Obamacare system fraudulently,” Vance said. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz also revealed that more than one million people who enrolled in Obamacare this year had no Social Security number.
Democrats never had an incentive to root out fraud; in fact, the Biden administration relaxed verification safeguards that would have caught most of the scammers. But Democrats benefit when more people appear to be enrolled in Obamacare, because that makes it more politically risky for Republicans to roll back subsidies or reduce eligibility.
250+ fake trucking schools
Unqualified migrant truckers have become the terror of American roads, with one heartbreaking story after another showing the deadly consequences of allowing poorly trained drivers to operate big rigs.
There are two primary culprits in this ongoing tragedy: Democrat states granting a commercial driver’s license to virtually anyone who wants one, and fraudulent trucking schools churning out certifications to drivers who in some cases can’t even speak or read English.
The Trump administration has gone after both the states and the schools, suspending more than 110 schools and completely shutting down another 150 so far, according to Center Square.
The case to prove fraud is simple. The 110 schools currently suspended are linked to more than 5,000 drivers who failed English language proficiency tests. Meanwhile, the 150 schools that have been shut down entirely “claim to be certified but have unlicensed instructors and don’t have adequate space to allow drivers to get behind the wheel and drive.”
Hundreds of fake hospice centers in Los Angeles
Following an investigation from independent journalist and YouTuber Nick Shirley, CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced an investigation into hospice care centers in Los Angeles. What he found was truly shocking.
Roughly one-third of the nation’s hospice providers are based in Los Angeles – despite the city only being home to 2.5 percent of the U.S. elderly population. In just one three-mile stretch of the city, there were 500 registered hospice companies, including 89 in a single building.
A CBS News investigation found “empty offices, piled-up mail, and phone lines dead” when they attempted to contact the companies. In total, CMS projects that there is $3.5 billion of hospice and home care fraud in Los Angeles every year.
In one particularly appalling case, a single physician was linked to Medicare claims for nearly 2,800 patients across 126 California hospices in 2024 – accounting for an eye-popping $71 million in billings to the government. Most hospice doctors care for only about 140 patients annually.
Perhaps most tellingly of all, CMS received zero complaints after shutting down more than 400 hospices in Los Angeles.
Minnesota scammers use ChatGPT to steal $2 million
Shirley’s investigative journalism kicked off the fraud frenzy in Minnesota, where he uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud linked to the state’s large Somali population. As the Trump administration has continued to investigate there, what they’ve found has only become more jaw-dropping.
In one particularly shocking case, the Department of Justice announced in July that four individuals had “pleaded guilty to defrauding Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) program out of approximately $2.2 million and concealing the scheme by using artificial intelligence to create fake records when questioned by insurance companies.”
Specifically, the defendants “fabricated records using ChatGPT in an attempt to conceal their theft.”
The DOJ called the criminals “Minnesota men,” but it’s doubtful that “Moktar Hassan Aden,” “Mustafa Dayib Ali,” “Khalid Ahmed Dayib,” and “Abdifitah Mohamud Mohamed” feel any sense of loyalty to Minnesota or the United States.
Gang members paid addicts in fentanyl and heroin to steal $12 million from Medicaid
One of the reasons there is so much fraud is that the federal government doles out cash for basically every cause.
In August, the Department of Justice charged four gang members with “$12 million of fraudulent Medicaid claims” for billing the government for “fake rides for Medicaid patients to and from methadone clinics in the Bronx.” The defendants allegedly “paid recurring kickbacks to Medicaid patients in cash and drugs, and laundered millions of dollars in fraud proceeds obtained from the scheme.”
The four individuals also reportedly “engaged in violence against their rivals.”
In other words, fraud has become so easy and rampant that gangs are now turning to ripping off taxpayers instead of good-old-fashioned robberies and racketeering. As a result, American taxpayer dollars are being used to fund gang warfare.
Homeless services executive spends $12 million on nightclubs, cars, and exotic vacations
In September, the Department of Justice announced federal fraud charges against California nonprofit executive Michael Young for allegedly “misappropriating” (read: stealing) $12 million.
Young received more than $100 million in funds meant to help address the out-of-control homelessness problem in California. Instead, he diverted millions to “a high-end nightclub, a nearly $50,000 trip to Tahiti, and a $140,000 restoration of a vintage Chevy Impala,” according to CalMatters.
Federal authorities charged at least two other people with defrauding taxpayers by stealing homeless funds. At least one has already pleaded guilty.
Authorities expect more charges to come, as a scathing 2025 report “found L.A. city officials failed to properly track $2.3 billion in homeless funds.”
“We have not seen the results you would expect for billions of dollars being spent,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced. He said “many more” prosecutions are expected.
Federal California district attorney Bill Essayli made a similar comment.
“There’s no vetting. There’s no auditing. There’s no accounting. It was just a rush to push as much money out the door as possible,” he said.
As critics have pointed out, nonprofits that are supposed to help the homeless have no incentive to do so. The worse the homelessness crisis gets, the more money the scammers can expect from the government.
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While these are a few of the most shocking examples of fraud uncovered so far during the Trump administration, they’re hardly the only ones. Taken together, they make abundantly clear that stealing from the taxpayer has become a multi-billion-dollar industry in America.
The most infuriating part of this saga for everyday Americans may be that the fraudsters are not particularly clever. They make virtually no effort to hide their schemes because, until now, no one in power has bothered to look under the hood and see where the money is really going.
Now, Trump is cleaning up the mess and putting the thieves on notice. But the question remains: is this a permanent change, or will the next administration allow a return to the broken status quo? It ultimately will be up to voters to decide.
Matt Lamb, AMAC Newsline
