One man slipped through the system with a passport in hand—and vanished. His alleged accomplice just struck a deal that trades jail time for helping catch him.
Said Awil Ibrahim walked into a Minnesota courtroom on May 1 and pleaded guilty. He’s not going to prison. Instead, he gets five years of supervised probation and a 150-day jail sentence that will never be served—if he keeps his end of the bargain.
The price of his freedom? He must help authorities hunt down the fugitive mastermind of a nearly $11 million Medicaid fraud scheme—the largest the state has ever prosecuted.
That mastermind, Abdirashid Ismail Said, was granted a $150,000 bond by a judge last year. Law enforcement warned he was a flight risk. They were right. He handed in his passport? No—he kept it. And then he disappeared.
Court documents reveal a detective’s chilling prediction: “Given the nature and severity of the charges, and Said’s familial ties outside Minnesota, I believe there is a potential Said may flee, hide, or otherwise prevent the execution of the warrant.” Said has a wife and child in Kenya—where prosecutors believe he fled.
This saga is part of a wider explosion of fraud scandals that rocked Minnesota in late 2025. Federal and state investigators zeroed in on pandemic-era schemes, many involving suspects from the state’s Somali community.
Back in 2023, Said testified that cultural misunderstandings fueled the cases. He argued investigators didn’t grasp that within the Minneapolis Somali community, funds often transfer without paper trails. That defense didn’t stop him from skipping his April court date.
Ibrahim’s role was devastatingly simple: he stole $2.2 million from Minnesota taxpayers through false claims. He pocketed over half a million dollars for himself. Now he’s sworn to repay every cent—through a payment plan still being hammered out at his sentencing.
His 150-day jail term vanishes if he sticks to probation and pays back the money. And if he helps track down the man who vanished with a passport and a plane ticket to nowhere.
Evidence of the scheme came straight from their own texts. “We gonna party bro. Insha Allah,” Said wrote to Ibrahim in 2022. Ibrahim replied: “Next pay period bro I’ll bill 50k ... Im gonna over bill the hours ... And do a hit and run.”
Prosecutors say Ibrahim over-reported staff hours at his care center, pumping up state payments. In exchange for his plea, the state dropped a racketeering charge and two theft counts.
It wasn’t Said’s first brush with the law. He was convicted of fraud in Minnesota in 2021—and walked away with probation and community service. This time, he’s wanted fugitive.
The Minnesota attorney general’s office declined to comment. But one thing is clear: Ibrahim’s cooperation could be the only thread left that leads to the man who got away.
