Warlord, terror, and taxpayer theft: ​Somali scheme allegedly bilks millions from Maine Medicaid to fund foreign army

Minnesota is not the only state facing large-scale fraud allegations involving the Somali community. A multimillion-dollar health care scandal has been uncovered in another state after a whistleblower came forward to expose the alleged corruption.

Christopher Bernardini, a whistleblower who worked at a health services contractor called Gateway Community Services from May 2018 to April 2025, told NewsNation about the alleged fraudulent billing practices he discovered during his time at the organization.

‘When I was in the US, I contributed to the financial support for the Jubaland-Somali army. To help the troops buy weapons, bullets, and food.’

“I just couldn’t fathom it — I thought we were helping people; I thought this was all on the up-and-up,” Bernardini told NewsNation in an interview. “I have a passion for helping people, and I thought that we were doing the right thing this whole time.”

Bernardini said he became disillusioned “when I saw how they were swindling people. When I had clients calling me to tell me their staff hadn’t shown up and I was told to bill those hours anyway. It just got worse and worse until I started really putting up a stink.”

RELATED: ‘Send them back’: Somalia First pitted against America First in Minnesota as Ilhan Omar attacks Trump over special status

Staff photo by Derek Davis/Portland Portland Press Herald via Getty Images

The contractor worked through MaineCare, Maine’s Medicaid program.

Bernardini claimed that documents were falsified and an electronic monitoring system was manipulated to make it appear as though staff provided services to clients when in fact the clients were never visited. Another source familiar with the company told NewsNation that times and timecards were “being manipulated to show services being provided [when] they were not.”

Nonetheless, Gateway Community Services is accused of billing for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of taxpayer dollars.

Maine Wire investigative journalist Steve Robinson appears to have uncovered where this money could have gone.

Gateway Community Services’ founder and CEO, Abdullahi Ali, is a Somalian who moved to Lewiston, Maine, as a refugee in 2009.

According to the Maine Wire, Ali started several businesses including Gateway Community Services, which, in turn, apparently helped to raise money for his political aspirations in Somalia.

In an interview he gave to Kenyan media, Ali bragged that he managed to raise money to fund a paramilitary force he hoped to lead as president in Jubaland, Somalia.

“When I was in the U.S., I contributed to the financial support for the Jubaland-Somali army. To help the troops buy weapons, bullets, and food,” said Ali, according to the Maine Wire.

“I helped pay my share of the fund.”

Ali’s 2024 presidential campaign in Somalia was unsuccessful.

In a since-deleted response to news outlets covering this story last week, Ali reportedly wrote: “I make no apologies for building a successful business in Maine, working hard to earn a living, earning my PhD, giving back to my Maine community, and running for office in Jubaland. I am proud to contribute my hard-earned $ to support my people back home. America is a nation of laws — you cannot change facts by fabricating false stories. I am proud Somali-American.”

Maine Republicans have called for a thorough investigation.

“I demanded a full investigation when I heard initial reporting about this welfare fraud scandal last May,” state Senator Matt Harrington (R) told NewsNation.

He criticized Democrat Governor Janet Mills’ administration over the issue.

“The Mills administration has neglected obvious and credible reports of Somali-linked systemic fraud in the MaineCare system,” Harrington said. “This is an outrageous betrayal of Maine taxpayers.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles called the state, with its current Democrat leadership, a “bastion of public corruption.”

Maine Democratic Party Chair Charlie Dingman released a statement, which in part reads: “Bobby Charles’ talk about burning down communities is unhinged. … I’m confident Maine people do not share Bobby Charles’s interest in demeaning or scapegoating our hardworking neighbors.”

While there does not seem to be any evidence of Charles calling for “burning down communities,” he did call on President Trump to “TORCH the CORRUPT, RADICAL, FRAUD-SOAKED, CARTEL-STYLE, TAXPAYER-MILKING Somalia-First Democrat Machine in Maine” shortly after the story first broke on December 5.

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