FBI raids multiple Twin Cities locations

Well, good morning to you. Welcome to Fox 9 All Day at 11. I'm Tom Butler. Great to have you with us. We want to first let you know about a developing story breaking right now. Federal and state agents are executing raids at several locations this morning. Let's take a live look at the scene, what's going on. We can show you. This is one of the sites where we have a number of agencies, feds there. Paul Bloom joins us right now with more on the big story to tell us what we know so far. And there are a lot of agencies involved here Paul and a lot going on there is despite that live image we just showed you because federal agents have pulled out of that St. Louis Park business Amber, I don't know if we can keep that up in the booth just as I talk over because it is uh it is developing it is a social service provider this is a state DHS licensed provider they would provide Medicaid services it's it's known as ISCA. It's in St. Louis Park. As you can see there, you can see also if you look to their front door there to the left, there's shattered glass. It would appear perhaps federal agents actually sort of physically went into that space this morning. Yeah, the door is open. We have seen sort of the inside. It looks empty as our camera crew is zooming in on there for you. But you see the shattered glass. We do know there was some type of raid. It was court authorized. We've had several of these over the last year, at times involving immigration, at times involving fraud, at times involving other criminal allegations. This one does appear to be fraud related. They are at multiple locations, the feds are. They are working with several agencies. I have a statement from the public affairs office of the FBI. Why don't we go to that to give people a sense of what we are talking about? A statement. And they're working in concert with the BCA. They are. And then here's, so here's the very specific, this is what we have on the record. Some other stuff is sourced information. It's information coming in that we are trying to lock down to absolutely get you on the record. But this is what I can tell you from, excuse me, special agent Matthew Vogel, who messaged what are you yeah he mentioned uh messaged paul not long ago uh saying fbi and several federal and state partner agencies including human health services u.s postal inspectors irs bca and the minnesota medicaid fraud control unit are engaged in court authorized investigative activity at several sites this morning you saw the the image of the live picture We were showing you right off the top of this newscast. There it is again. So you see there are a number of agencies here, Paul, who are taking part in this. Obviously, this is something that's been in the works for a while, to have that many people coordinated in this effort. Absolutely, and given that it's court-authorized, perhaps having gone to a grand jury, perhaps picking up, you know, this is the evidence. We don't know if any arrests accompanied this. By the time we got our crew to the scene, agents were pulling out evidence, but we're not otherwise. We didn't see anyone being detained or anything. Now, one thing that might be worth pointing out, I don't think it's coincidence. Tomorrow, the vice president is coming to St. Cloud. We know that he is bringing the sort of Washington, D.C. fraud task force, a fraud fighting task force. It would make a lot of sense if what's happening this morning. We know in multiple locations, clearly suburban locations, St. Louis Park. We haven't necessarily heard any reports at this point of them being in Minneapolis. But to get to have some raids, to have some arrests, to have some cases to highlight tomorrow. If you're bringing the vice president, if you're bringing the fraud task force, top officials from Washington, D.C., coming into St. Cloud tomorrow for an event. We don't have all the details from the White House. but the fact that the vice president is coming and then this morning we are getting word in the fbi confirming that uh operations are underway important to point out again court authorized this isn't like a wing and a prayer here they went to a judge they had enough evidence to go into this business again that one is pronounced isca it's in St. Louis Park I don't have a ton of information on it but just to give you a sense of their DHS license they do basic support services so adult companion services homemaking night supervision respite care in home or out of home individualized home supports the positive support semi-independent living skills and the like so day support services so you know one of these Medicaid providers certainly that industry as a whole that that service uh provider those those providers when we think about those that were susceptible to fraud those those those services certainly have fallen in those buckets of what's gotten a lot of attention from both local state and of course federal officials over the last couple years here in Minnesota there's no doubt about it and when you look at this happening today what we've seen now over the past year with some of these raids not only is it chronic it's rampant it appears yeah and then to your point with the vice president coming into town tomorrow in St. Cloud for an event with his fraud group to talk about all this. And the election is coming up on Tuesday. As they say, timing is everything. Timing is everything. No, it is. I will point out the Cisco service provider first had a license. It's been going on about 10 years, March 29, 2016, according to the portal, the publicly available data on the DHS website. But no doubt, I mean, I don't want to say no doubt because I don't have it tied up. It would certainly make a lot of sense if any operation today that we're hearing about obviously got underway very early because we got our camera to that site I would say you know mid-morning and so and then they were already sort of you know moving and then have already pulled boxes so clearly and these raids often do happen right right first thing in the morning even maybe starting under the cover of darkness and certainly in that video it's interesting that they actually had to to possibly break in the glass as opposed to sort of meeting a business owner or a company there that was was on site to sort of accept them and then you know allow allow the search to occur and can we go over the uh the groups who are taking part in the raids today uh paul maybe we can bring up that yeah probably bring up the statement we can bring all that up again that was sent to Paul with all the different agencies involved with the uh this fraud sting operation today that's HHS, the Office of Inspector General, Health and Human, is it still called Health and Human Services, yeah yeah okay uh postal inspectors, IRS, BCA and the Minnesota Medicaid Fraud Control Unit are engaged in court authorized investigative activity at several sites this morning this is an active investigation and no further details are available at this time so HHS, postal inspectors, IRS And then, again, the state agencies that are part of this, BCA and the Minnesota Fraud Control Unit. And, of course, fraud, fraud, fraud. That is all we have heard in Minnesota over the last, I mean, well, for years now. But certainly as it relates to this election, every other commercial, I'm sure when we go to break, you'll see a few of them. Of course, yeah, with all the different ads, yeah. But the fact that they are executing this at this point in time, just so close to the election, with a vice presidential visit coming in some races that some suggest are tightening statewide between, you know, Democrats and Republicans. When you talk to gubernatorial race and the U.S. Senate race between Flanagan and DeFoya and that look tomorrow of the vice president sort of unveiling another half dozen, ten, who knows how many different fraud suspects or cases they may bring attention to tomorrow. Do we know, are we on other sites right now as we speak? We are not. I mean, of course, we oftentimes rely on sourcing and tipping. In this case, we did get word through some observers today of the fact that we were over in St. Louis Park. I had at least been told by some sourcing that this wasn't necessarily going to be overtly Minneapolis related. A lot of obviously what we hear about and see is sort of the big city where a lot of these, you know, service providers office. I'm told more suburban locations today. But again, that's just loose information. And the Twin Cities is such a large metropolitan area. You know, I don't know exactly where they are. We're still tracking. And someone, you know, out there sees some federal law enforcement activity. I'd love for them to tip us off in the museum today because we want to be observers today ourselves. We know this one for sure. Paul, thanks for all the information. I know you still have a lot of legwork to do before we go on the air later. But thanks for the information now. And we'll keep joining you every hour as news develops. But of course, we have a reporter, Emily Poe, falls out in the field for us today on location. And we'll bring you the latest because this is huge in advance of a vice presidential visit tomorrow. We want to be all over it for you guys. So we'll have you back on all day throughout the morning. Excellent. Paul, thanks as always. Appreciate it so much.