The Transportation Security Administration flagged approximately $700 million in cash stuffed in passenger luggage and leaving Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport over the past two years, according to Homeland Security officials – most if heading to Somalia.
That jaw-dropping cash outflow is 10 to 100 times larger than other major U.S. airports.
The cash, detected through TSA scanners and declared under U.S. Customs regulations requiring disclosure of amounts over $10,000 when leaving the country, totaled $342.37 million in 2024 and $349.4 million in 2025, averaging nearly $1 million per day.
Most of the cash was transported by a small group of couriers of Somali descent who took regular flights to Amsterdam and Dubai. The money ultimately ended up in Somalia or spread through the Middle East, Homeland Security officials told Just the News.
The cash couriers typically traveled in groups of two to four people, often carrying huge stacks of cash reaching up to $1 million per suitcase.
The volume of U.S. cash leaving Minneapolis is exponentially larger than similar detected cash outflows from busier American airports, including Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, New York’s JFK, Los Angeles, and Chicago’s O’Hare.
In fact, Minneapolis airport TSA flagged cash amounts 99 times larger than all the declared cash leaving New York’s JFK.
TSA agents routinely flagged these huge cash transfers to Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations, but there was no follow-up during the Biden administration.
One senior official told Just the News that there was not much that could be done because the couriers always had their paperwork properly completed.
Another official said that when federal authorities did inquire with Minnesota officials about the massive cash flows, they were accused of being racists for asking questions about Somali immigrants.
The mountain of dollars leaving the country is now being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security as part of a broader probe into a massive multibillion-dollar fraud scheme centered around Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community, where dozens have already been charged with or convicted of federal crimes.
The couriers’ activities match obvious patterns seen in fraud cases where money is converted to cash and exported, officials said, but were ignored by the Biden administration.
In March of last year, a federal jury convicted the head of the now-defunct organization Feeding Our Future in Minnesota for what prosecutors called the largest-ever fraud of pandemic aid, which involved $250 million.
Over $250 million in taxpayer funds were allegedly defrauded through COVID-era child nutrition and welfare programs, with some proceeds suspected to have been laundered and sent overseas.
Since then, officials have uncovered what they suspect to be $10 billion in federal fraud centered within the Somali refugee community in Minnesota. The cash movements from Minneapolis began about a decade ago but have grown substantially bigger under Biden, officials said.
“If you or I try to go through an airport, and we had $10,000 in cash without declaring it, we’d be arrested,” Former CIA analyst and National Security Council Chief of Staff Fred Fleitz said. “It’s a serious violation because it’s linked to criminal activity, and it’s absolutely clear that the Biden administration knew that this was going on, and they were looking the other way. It was part of their efforts to change the demographics of this country by encouraging illegal migration.”
President Trump has repeatedly raised concerns about the Somali immigrant fraud scheme in Minnesota, and his administration has dispatched hundreds of FBI, Homeland Security, and IRS agents to investigate. More than 90 defendants, most of Somali descent, have already been indicted.
“Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone,” Trump wrote on social media.
No charges have been announced directly related to the airport cash transports. Homeland Security officials said that not all the money is assumed to be illegal or stolen, but that the unchecked, massive volume warrants serious investigation.