Former Vikings captain reacts to FBI raids on alleged Somali fraudsters in Minnesota

Former Minnesota Vikings captain and Minnesota Golden Gophers football star Jack Brewer has witnessed an arc of crime and punishment involving his state's Somali community.

After previously telling Fox News Digital that he saw alleged Somali fraudsters buy luxury sports cars during his playing career with the Vikings, Brewer witnessed the FBI conduct raids on the alleged Somali fraudsters at the center of a years-long Minnesota welfare fraud scheme.

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"Americans should celebrate today. Finally, we have an FBI that is actually sticking up for the poor in this country and stopping this corruption that’s happening in Minneapolis and the surrounding areas, where they’re robbing, literally robbing, the orphan, the widow, and those in poverty," Brewer told Fox News Digital later on Tuesday.

"Thank God Kash Patel and the federal government are stepping in, because they are the only ones who will even attempt to police this place. Minnesota will not police itself."

Federal authorities raided more than 20 locations, including childcare facilities, in Minneapolis on Tuesday as part of a sweeping fraud investigation into largely Somali-owned businesses, sources confirmed to Fox News.

Authorities executed 22 federal search warrants in Minnesota on Tuesday morning as part of the operation, which is not immigration-related.

The raids center on federal fraud investigations into largely Somali-owned businesses, including childcare facilities that registered their daycare with the state but were allegedly billing for care that was not provided.

"They prey on vulnerable people," Brewer said of the alleged fraudsters.

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"I believe they get into these networks and pass it on amongst each other — how to steal from the U.S. government and how to exploit the very people those programs were created to help. Those people are gross. They are robbing the people who need help the most and turning suffering into their own personal business model."

Brewer was a standout special teams player and team captain for the Minnesota Vikings. Signed as a free agent, he played 15 games in 2002, leading the team in special teams tackles and securing his first career interception against Green Bay. He was named team captain in 2003.

Prior to that, he was a standout safety and team captain at the University of Minnesota after transferring from SMU, earning First Team All-Big Ten honors and leading defensive backs in tackles in 2001.

"Minnesota is one of the most fatherless places in America, particularly because 28% of their households are single-family households, the vast majority being single moms. Minnesota is literally vulnerable to these schemes from all of these folks who have figured out how to manipulate the system, and they’ve created industries of corruption," Brewer added.

"Many liberal cities, but especially Minneapolis, have become completely lawless. They will not, by any means, police themselves — at the state level, the local level, or the city level. All they do is let people get away with crime after crime after crime, no matter if it’s violent crime or white-collar crime... What can you do to actually go to jail in Minnesota? If you look at it, they have some of the shortest prison sentences, they let people right out of jail, and it becomes a free-for-all. It is a complete free-for-all."

Minnesota has been under the spotlight for years for Medicaid fraud, including a massive $300 million pandemic fraud case involving the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. It drew renewed national attention in 2025 as convictions piled up and the state became a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s broader "war on fraud."

In 2022, during former President Joe Biden’s administration, 47 people were charged. As of December, 57 people have been convicted, either because they pleaded guilty or lost at trial. Most of the defendants are of Somali descent.

Fox News' Bill Melugin and Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.

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