The Transportation Security Administration flagged nearly $700 million in cash detected in passengers’ luggage leaving the Minneapolis airport the last two years, a massive cash exodus believed to be tied to Somali immigrants and their money couriers, Homeland Security officials told Just the News.
The officials said the cash movements out of Minnesota’s largest airport began about a decade ago – around the time Democrat Gov. Tim Walz took office – and has grown substantially in recent years.
Though all were legally declared according to U.S. Customs rules, the bundles of cash in luggage – some as much as $1 million in a single trip – raised regular suspicions among TSA agents.
The mountain of dollars leaving the country is now being investigated by the Homeland Security Investigations unit as part of a broader probe into a multibillion dollar fraud scheme centered around the state’s Somali immigrant community, where dozens have been charged with or convicted of federal crimes.
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, the BBC reported.
$349.4 million in cash discovered leaving Minneapolis in 2025
Officials said most of the dollars detected in luggage involved a small number of money couriers of Somali descent who took routine routes to Dubai via Amsterdam, usually from Minneapolis but other times from Seattle, Dallas, Columbus and Atlanta.
Minneapolis travelers alone had $342.37 million in their luggage in 2024 and $349.4 million in 2025, and the totals nationwide are likely to be much higher, the officials told Just the News.
TSA agents routinely flagged the cash movements to Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations, but there was little curiosity during the Biden administration, and investigations into the nature and players only began recently since Donald Trump returned to the White House, the officials told Just the News.
One senior official who declined to be identified but has first-hand knowledge of the issue told Just the News that there wasn’t much that could be done because the couriers always had their paperwork in order. But there were concerns about what was going on, and it may take Congress to change laws for federal authorities to get to the bottom of it or to stop it.
Another official said that when federal officials inquired with Minnesota officials, they often got accused of being racists by asking questions about Somali immigrants.
Federal and state law enforcement officials said the Somali cash flows were well known in counterterrorism circles since the 2016-18 timeframe because of concerns some of the money might head to al-Qaeda offshoot groups like Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, but most tracking of the money ended when the money reached Dubai because of a lack of interest and curiosity during the Biden administration even as the transfers grew in size.
Possibly part of a much larger system
The Somali couriers are believed to be part of a much larger system in which legal and illegal immigrants are moving tens of billions of dollars a year out of the United States via flights or remittance payment vendors.
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