A Somali immigrant once celebrated by Minnesota's government as an outstanding refugee entrepreneur now faces eight felony counts for allegedly helping steal millions in Medicaid funds, part of a scheme prosecutors say also involved sex trafficking.
Salman Ahmed Elmi, 30, of St. Paul, was charged last week with three counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle and five counts of aiding and abetting theft by false representation. Prosecutors allege Elmi and co-conspirators created four fake agencies, including his company Reva Health, and used forged documents to bill Minnesota's Medicaid system for services that were never provided. The alleged fraud dates back to 2023 and totals at least $4.5 million.
Elmi was released on bail Monday after surrendering his passport and agreeing to remain in Minnesota. His next court hearing is scheduled for October 4.
Three co-conspirators, Frank Reeves, Viktoriya Komonash, and Andrea Sampson, were charged separately, each facing 26 felony counts. Those charges include promoting prostitution and generating profits from commercial sex work, layered on top of the Medicaid fraud allegations. Investigators say they have been looking into the alleged sex trafficking ring since 2019.
In 2021, the Minnesota Department of Human Services gave Elmi its Outstanding Refugee Award for Entrepreneurship. The agency described the award as "a way to recognize some of the individuals who make Minnesota better for all of us." A since-deleted profile on the state's website celebrated Elmi for starting a business "to help inspire other people," the New York Post reported.
Elmi had built his public reputation around Tavolo, an AI marketing app for restaurants that attracted an investment from Kevin O'Leary, the investor known as "Mr. Wonderful" from the television show Shark Tank. Elmi parlayed that venture into launching Reva Health, which claimed to provide adult rehabilitative mental health services to Medicaid recipients.
Instead, prosecutors allege, Reva Health was one of four sham agencies that billed Minnesota's Medicaid program for services never rendered. Employees were allegedly instructed to pay illegal kickbacks to Medicaid recipients in exchange for their personal information, which was then used to file phony claims. Breitbart reported that Elmi billed over $1 million in fraudulent claims through Reva Health alone.
The same agency that handed Elmi his award, the Minnesota Department of Human Services, is the agency that processes the Medicaid payments he allegedly stole from. The award program was discontinued in 2024.
The case against Elmi's three co-defendants adds a far darker dimension. Frank Reeves, described by prosecutors as the ringleader, allegedly attempted to lure drug-addicted and homeless women into prostitution while renting apartments in their names. The Washington Examiner reported that Andrea Sampson, a former assistant prosecutor in Anoka County, a suburb north of Minneapolis, was charged with 13 counts of promoting prostitution and 13 counts of generating profits from commercial prostitution, among other charges.
Sampson allegedly operated shell companies to funnel sex trafficking profits between 2020 and 2026, while she was employed as a government prosecutor. She also allegedly converted a property used for commercial sex into a fraudulent assisted living facility called Homefelt Assisted Living, which billed Medicaid more than $500,000.
The co-conspirators allegedly stole the identities of men who paid women for sex and used those identities to submit additional fraudulent Medicaid claims. Investigators say Elmi and Reeves spoke regularly about both the Medicaid fraud and the sex trafficking operations, though Elmi himself has not been charged with sex trafficking offenses.
In one text message cited by prosecutors, Reeves told Elmi: "I'm going to take over this whole state." In another exchange with Sampson, Reeves wrote: "We can't get married with you in jail... I'm just playing... Baby I have things to do."
Federal prosecutors have pursued similar Medicaid fraud rings in other states, but the scale of Minnesota's problem stands apart.
Elmi's case is not an isolated incident. It lands in the middle of what has become one of the largest government fraud scandals in American history. U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson announced in December 2025 that investigators had uncovered approximately $9 billion in federal Medicaid funds stolen from 14 Minnesota programs since 2018. Across child nutrition, housing services, and autism program scams, 92 defendants have been charged. Of those 92, prosecutors identified 82 as Somali.
The most notorious case within that broader scandal involved a program called Feeding Our Future, through which at least 78 people allegedly defrauded the federal government of up to $300 million by falsely claiming reimbursement for meals served to children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some defendants allegedly spent the stolen money on beachfront property in Kenya and private villas in the Maldives.
The fraud wave has drawn sustained scrutiny of Minnesota's Democratic leadership. Governor Tim Walz has faced a deepening scandal over welfare scams that occurred on his watch, including payments to daycares and fraud tied to COVID-era relief programs. Critics allege the fraud was allowed to continue in part because officials feared being labeled racist for investigating it. Fox News reported that conservative commentator Benny Johnson highlighted the irony of the Department of Human Services both honoring Elmi and overseeing the Medicaid system he allegedly defrauded, writing on social media: "You can't make this up."
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's office brought the charges against Elmi. Ellison said in a statement: "Medicaid fraud steals money meant to provide healthcare to our low-income friends and neighbors. It is illegal and it makes my blood boil." Ellison himself had previously been referred to the Department of Justice for a criminal fraud investigation, adding another layer of political complexity to Minnesota's fraud crisis.
The pattern of pandemic-era fraud reaching the courts extends well beyond Minnesota, but few states have seen anything approaching this scale.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services issued a statement after the charges became public, calling Elmi's alleged conduct "disturbing" while insisting it did not reflect the broader refugee community:
"Elmi's alleged actions are disturbing and do not reflect the goal of the Outstanding Refugee Awards. They also do not represent Minnesota's refugee community. We are surrounded by neighbors, co-workers, employees and friends with powerful stories of resilience in the face of difficult circumstances, who are showing leadership in small as well as large ways to improve their communities."
The department added that it had "taken additional actions to stop connected individuals from providing current or future services and will continue to use our enforcement authority as new information becomes available." The agency did not specify what those additional actions were.
Before his arrest, Elmi had spoken publicly about his entrepreneurial ambitions. In a profile connected to his Tavolo business, he said: "No one owns businesses in my family; my entire family came here with the idea that the American dream was just getting a job and making it work, so shifting that mindset was difficult but important."
Minnesota's ongoing fraud investigations have drawn attention to broader questions about oversight and accountability within the state's government. Separately, questions about the use of public funds by Minnesota political figures have added to the state's troubled reputation on financial transparency.
Elmi faces eight felony charges. His co-defendants face 26 counts each. The $4.5 million allegedly stolen through their four fake agencies is a fraction of the $9 billion that federal investigators say has been looted from Minnesota's Medicaid system since 2018.
Just The News noted that the case fits a broader pattern of fraud charges involving individuals previously celebrated or trusted by government institutions, people who used that trust as a shield while allegedly stealing from the programs they claimed to serve.
Several open questions remain. Which of the four alleged fake agencies, beyond Reva Health, were involved? What is Elmi's immigration status? And what specific steps has the Department of Human Services actually taken to prevent connected individuals from continuing to bill the state?
Minnesota gave Elmi an award for entrepreneurship. Prosecutors now say the enterprise he built was a machine for stealing from the taxpayers and the low-income patients Medicaid was designed to help. When government agencies hand out trophies without doing basic due diligence, the people who pay the price are the ones who always do, the working families whose tax dollars fund the programs and the vulnerable patients left without real care.