The Auditor in the Room: How a Small Ohio Accounting Firm Became the Gatekeeper of Minnesota’s Billion-Dollar Fraud Scandal
Things have gotten bad when even the auditors need auditing.
In what’s shaping up to be one of the most spectacular government fraud scandals in American history—potentially $9 billion in stolen taxpayer money—a tiny accounting firm operating out of a Columbus, Ohio strip mall has emerged as an unlikely central character. And here’s the kicker: they were conducting audits before they were even legally allowed to do them.
Meet H&H Barkad Accounting Service.
The Auditor Nobody Was Auditing
Here’s how this is supposed to work: When nonprofits spend more than $750,000 in federal grant money per year, they’re required to get an independent audit. Makes sense, right? Someone needs to look over the books to make sure taxpayer dollars are actually going where they’re supposed to go.
But here’s the thing nobody talks about: these organizations get to pick their own auditors.
It’s like letting students choose who grades their own tests. What could possibly go wrong?
Enter Mohamed H. Warmahaye and his firm, H&H Barkad Accounting Service, located at 2181 Morse Road in Columbus—inside something called the “Jubba Value Center,” which is apparently a travel and computer business. Because when someone thinks “major federal audit work,” they definitely think “office space inside a travel agency.”
The Timeline That Should Terrify Everyone
Let’s walk through what happened here, because the dates matter:
2022-2023: H&H Barkad signs off on federal grant audits for multiple organizations—before being properly registered to do that kind of work.
September 2024: H&H Barkad conducts audits for the Somali Education and Resource Center in Ohio and MAK Community Enrichment Services in Minnesota—two nonprofits now under scrutiny for potential fraud.
January 2024: H&H Barkad finally registers with the state of Ohio as an attest firm—meaning they finally got the legal permission to do the very audits they’d been doing for the previous two years.
Wait, what?
Yeah. They were signing off on federal grant audits before they were even properly registered to do that kind of work.
August 2025: The Ohio Accountancy Board finally catches up with them and votes to revoke both Warmahaye’s CPA license and the firm’s registration. The charges? Conducting audits without proper registration, violating professional conduct rules, and performing non-compliant audits.
The revocation was stayed (meaning temporarily put on hold) on the condition that Warmahaye pay a $2,000 fine, complete 8 credits of continuing education on how to properly conduct audits, and notify all his clients about the violations.
A $2,000 fine for potentially enabling billions in fraud. Let that sink in.
Operating Across State Lines
Here’s another crucial detail: Warmahaye was based in Ohio, but was conducting audits for Minnesota organizations. Under interstate mobility rules, CPAs licensed in one state can perform services in another state without obtaining a separate license—as long as they’re properly licensed in their home state and meet certain conditions.
The problem? Warmahaye wasn’t properly registered in his home state of Ohio when he was conducting these audits. He was operating under fraudulent credentials, which means every audit he signed off on during that period was invalid—whether in Ohio, Minnesota, or anywhere else.
This means Minnesota organizations were receiving federal funds based on audit certifications from an accountant who had no legal authority to be conducting those audits. The system designed to catch fraud was itself fraudulent.
The Minnesota Connection
So why does an Ohio accounting firm matter to Minnesota’s fraud scandal?
Because H&H Barkad wasn’t just auditing any old nonprofits. According to investigative reporting, they were the auditor of choice for approximately 50 Somali daycare centers in Minnesota—many of which are now connected to the sprawling fraud investigation that’s currently consuming the state.
This is the same fraud scandal that includes:
- Feeding Our Future: A nonprofit accused of stealing $250 million from the Federal Child Nutrition Program by falsely claiming to provide meals to needy children during COVID
- Housing fraud: More than $104 million allegedly stolen from Minnesota’s housing stabilization program
- Autism services fraud: $14 million in billing for treatment services that were never provided
- Daycare fraud: Dozens of centers collecting millions in taxpayer funding despite showing no evidence of actually caring for children
And the total? Federal prosecutors estimate it could reach $9 billion—making it one of the largest public assistance fraud cases in U.S. history.
The Audit That Wasn’t
Here’s what makes the H&H Barkad story so damning: their job was literally to be the last line of defense. They were supposed to look at these organizations’ books and say, “Hey, wait a minute—you’re billing for 500 kids but there are no sign-in sheets, attendance records, or evidence these children even exist.”
Instead, they rubber-stamped the paperwork and collected their fees.
Independent journalist Walter Curt was the first to connect the dots between H&H Barkad and the Somali-run nonprofits now under investigation. As he pointed out, when potentially compromised auditors are allowed to review how nonprofits handle federal funds, fraud doesn’t just happen—it metastasizes.
The Bigger Picture: Minnesota’s Fraud Ecosystem
The H&H Barkad story would be shocking enough on its own, but it’s just one piece of a larger systemic failure that’s been unfolding in Minnesota for over a decade.
2014: The Office of Inspector General identifies “a pattern of child care fraud activities that involves deception and exploitation.”
2019: Tim Walz becomes governor. The fraud problem explodes.
2023: Federal prosecutions of the Feeding Our Future case reveal that half of those indicted were also running other Medicaid-funded programs. Despite this being publicly reported, those same defendants continued receiving state money.
January 2026: A devastating audit from Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor finds that the Department of Human Services’ Behavioral Health Administration:
- Distributed $425 million to 830 organizations with virtually no oversight
- Missing progress reports on more than half of grant agreements reviewed
- Couldn’t prove it completed required monitoring visits
- Backdated and fabricated documents after the audit began to make it look like they’d done their jobs
Minnesota’s Legislative Auditor Judy Randall has been doing this for 27 years. Her assessment? “Frankly, in the 27 years I’ve been with the OLA, we’ve never seen this before.”
One particularly egregious example: A grant manager approved $672,647 to a vendor for a single month’s work, then resigned a few days later and became a paid consultant for that same vendor. No conflict of interest there, right?
The Political Fallout
The scandal has had real consequences:
- January 5, 2026: Governor Tim Walz announces he’s dropping his re-election bid
- House Oversight Committee: Chairman James Comer has launched a full investigation and called Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison to testify
- Federal response: The Trump administration has deployed hundreds of DHS agents to the Twin Cities area
- Whistleblower retaliation: Multiple state employees have reported being silenced or punished for trying to report fraud
Minnesota State Representative Kristin Robbins, who chairs the state’s Fraud Prevention Committee, testified to Congress that credible reports of daycare fraud have existed since 2011. “Tim Walz and his Administration have willfully turned a blind eye to crime,” she said, “in the face of countless whistleblower and Auditor reports.”
The Uncomfortable Questions
Here’s what should keep everyone up at night about this whole mess:
How did a small, improperly registered accounting firm become the auditor of choice for dozens of organizations handling tens of millions in federal money?
Was it because they were willing to look the other way? Was it because they didn’t know what they were doing? Or was it because in Minnesota’s grant ecosystem, nobody was really checking anyway?
Why were organizations allowed to continue operating and receiving funds after key personnel were indicted for fraud in other programs?
This isn’t a failure of information—prosecutors publicly announced these indictments. This is a failure of will.
How does a state agency literally fabricate documents during an audit and face essentially no consequences?
When the people responsible for oversight are manufacturing evidence to cover their tracks, the situation has moved beyond incompetence into something much darker.
The Cost of Looking Away
Let’s be clear about what this fraud actually means. These aren’t abstract numbers in government budgets. This is about:
- Money meant to feed hungry children that instead went into personal bank accounts
- Housing assistance for vulnerable people that never materialized
- Autism treatment services that were billed but never provided
- Kids who needed daycare so their parents could work, but those daycares didn’t actually exist
And according to some reports, portions of these stolen funds may have been funneled overseas to support terrorist organizations including Al-Shabaab and ISIS.
All of this happened while H&H Barkad Accounting Service was certifying that everything looked great on paper.
What Happens Next?
As of January 2026:
- More than 90 people face federal charges
- Congress is conducting multiple hearings
- Federal investigators from multiple agencies are actively working cases in Minnesota
- The full scope of the fraud continues to grow
Mohamed Warmahaye paid his $2,000 fine. His accounting firm, as far as anyone can tell, is still in business—though presumably no longer conducting federal audits.
The Somali Education and Resource Center in Ohio somehow registered dozens of daycare centers on a single day in June 2024. Many of these centers share addresses, operate out of dilapidated buildings, or can’t be found at the addresses listed. But they were all certified as compliant by—you guessed it—an Ohio-based accounting firm that was itself not in compliance with state regulations.
The Lesson Nobody Wants to Learn
This scandal reveals an uncomfortable truth about how government fraud actually works. It’s not usually some criminal mastermind pulling off an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist. It’s systematic failures at every level of oversight creating an environment where fraud becomes the path of least resistance.
When auditors aren’t qualified to audit, when state agencies fabricate documents instead of doing their jobs, when whistleblowers get punished for speaking up, and when organizations can hand-pick friendly auditors to certify their own compliance, a sophisticated conspiracy isn’t needed.
Everyone just needs to look the other way.
And apparently, that’s exactly what happened in Minnesota.
For over a decade.
To the tune of $9 billion.
All while H&H Barkad Accounting Service, operating out of a strip mall in Columbus, Ohio, kept signing off on the paperwork—without even having the legal authority to do so.
The House Oversight Committee hearing on Minnesota fraud continues on February 10, 2026, with Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison scheduled to testify. Multiple federal investigations remain ongoing.