Parents in Minnesota were paid up to $1,500 per child if they enrolled kids for bogus treatments at two autism centers in the largest-of-its-kind fraud and money laundering scheme, the feds have alleged.
Four accused fraudsters paid parents from the local Somali community kickbacks ranging from $300 to $1,500 a month for each child they enrolled for unrequired treatments at autism clinics Smart Therapy Center and Star Autism Center, a new indictment alleges.
It’s unclear how many Minneapolis and St. Cloud area children were wrongfully listed as autistic, but it was enough during a five-year period to amass $46 million in fraudulent healthcare payouts, the feds allege.
The kickbacks — referred to by the code word “computer” — were “disguised” when the defendants wrote checks to employees and family members of the facilities that were then cashed and paid to the parents each month, the filing alleges.
As part of related cases, the defendants also helped pilfer other taxpayer-funded programs to receive payments for hundreds of thousands of meals for kids at Smart Therapy — that were never fully provided, according to federal prosecutors.
The fraudsters were part of a sprawling scheme to use the stolen money to benefit themselves and their families, including buying property in Kenya and a truck, between 2019 and 2024.
Shamso Ahmed Hassan, 55, a co-owner of both Smart Therapy and Star Autism, and employee Hanaan Mursal Yusuf, 25, were charged Thursday for bilking Medicaid and state funding earmarked for autism treatment to the tune of $46.6 million — in the largest autism scheme ever, federal prosecutors alleged.
In all, $21.2 million in autism funding was paid out to just those two defendants through the fraudulent benefits claimed through Star Autism and Smart Therapy, the court papers allege, both of which lost their Minnesota state licenses earlier this year.
Asha Farhan Hassan, 28, and Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, 27, both previously took plea deals tied to their involvement in the scams at Star Autism and Smart Therapy. The duo — who are awaiting sentencing — are apparently siblings.
The new indictment against Shamso Hassan and Hanaan Yusuf — both of Brooklyn Park, Minn. — include allegations against co-conspirator 1 and 2, whose identifying details match those of Asha Hassan and Abdinajib Yussuf.
Specifically, the four schemers allegedly defrauded the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention (EIDBI) benefits program, which is meant for services for people with autism who are under 21.
From 2018 to 2025, spending in Minnesota’s EIDBI program, which funds autism centers, rose from more than $600,000 to more $400 million, Department of Justice officials said.
Hassan and Yusuf — the lead biller at Smart Therapy — enrolled with the health department as Level II providers of autism services through the EIDBI, with Yusuf eventually upgrading to become a Level I provider on Jan. 1, 2024, the court papers claimed.
This allowed “Smart Therapy to bill for her services at a higher rate,” the indictment alleged.
Yussuf bought a Freightliner semi-truck using $100,000 of the fraudulent money, and he wired $200,000 to Kenya, a prior indictment alleged.
And Asha Hassan sent hundreds of thousands of dollars abroad and bought real estate in Kenya, the feds claimed at the time of her arrest and charging last September.
Hassan — a co-owner of Smart Therapy — was also accused of scamming both adult and child food benefits programs by claiming, starting in December 2020, that the facility was serving 300 children both breakfast and lunch seven days a week, the feds alleged in her case.
By April 2021, Smart Therapy was claiming to serve 1,200 meals a day, seven days a week — which Hassan knew was “grossly inflated,” prosecutors alleged.
Between 2020 and 2021, she claimed the center served almost 200,000 meals to kids, for which she claimed $465,000, her indictment alleged.
Star Autism, located in St. Cloud, had its license revoked on Jan. 23, while Smart Therapy, located in Minneapolis, had its license taken away on Jan. 7, according to state records.
The alleged schemers also had checkered pasts too, with Shamso Hassan previously running a child care center that lost its license for abusing kids, according to court records and past reports.
Shamso Hassan helped run Kingdom Kare Learning Center in Minneapolis, which had its license revoked after surveillance video revealed that one employee used a long, thick stick to hit 14 kids a total of 19 times in April 2017, CBS News reported at the time.
State court records show Hassan was named in a case involving more than $40,000 in debts owed by Kingdom Kare Learning Center, LLC, in 2017.
Yusuf was previously convicted for presenting a fake ID to a cop in 2019, court records show, and paid a $138 fine.
Both made an initial appearance in court Thursday and have since been released without bond.
The recent indictments were among 15 unveiled by the Justice Department Thursday in connection with more than $90 million of stolen taxpayer funding for fraudulent services in Minnesota — including one scammer who leaped from a fourth-story balcony before being apprehended by the FBI.
Bruce Rivers, a defense attorney for Hanaan Yusuf, and Deborah Ellis, who is representing Abdinajib Yussuf, declined to comment when reached by The Post.
Requests for comment to Kevin Riach, who is representing Shamso Ahmed Hassan and Ryan Pacyga, who is representing Asha Hassan, were not returned.
