Lead defendant in $11M Medicaid fraud skips Hennepin court, now fugitive

Prosecutors say 50‑year‑old Abdirashid Ismail Said, accused of leading a nearly $11 million Medicaid fraud scheme through three home‑health agencies, failed to appear for a Hennepin County pre‑trial hearing on April 8 and has forfeited his $150,000 bond. A jury trial was scheduled to begin next week, but a warrant is now out for his arrest and Attorney General Keith Ellison says his Medicaid Fraud Control Unit is working with federal law enforcement to track him down. Said had been allowed to avoid surrendering his passport by posting an unconditional $150,000 bond—despite investigators flagging his wife and child in Nairobi and warning there was a real flight risk—while a $50,000 conditional bond would have required him to give up the passport. He is charged with racketeering, perjury and multiple counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle for allegedly billing Medicaid for undocumented, ineligible or entirely fictitious services at Faym Health, Prestige Health and Minnesota Home Health Care, in what Ellison’s office calls the largest case ever brought by Minnesota’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. Court filings note he was already convicted of Medicaid fraud in 2022, ordered to repay $77,000 and supposedly barred from working with Medicaid‑funded agencies, raising hard questions about how state oversight let him stay in the system long enough to allegedly steal millions more from a program Twin Cities patients depend on.