CRC News: Daily Wire investigation of suspicious Ohio NGO began at the Capital Research Center

On January 19, Capital Research Center investigative researcher Parker Thayer posted a blog that launched a major investigative report by Luke Rosiak, the Daily Wire’s veteran government waste investigator. When the first part of his five-part investigation posted on May 4, Rosiak began with this admission: “I’ve been investigating federal waste and fraud for 20 years. This is the biggest scandal I’ve ever found.”

Thayer was first to reveal hints of what was going on with “Suspicious immigration NGO rakes in tax dollars in Columbus.” The NGO with the peculiar business structure was the UNIK Foundation. The Ohio-based private foundation has accumulated more than $1 million in grants from local, state and federal taxpayers, but done so with—one might say—“unique” notions about how government-supported NGOs should behave.

Parker summarized his discoveries at the beginning of his report:

Following the recent outcry over apparent fraud at daycares in the Somali community of Minnesota, Vice President J.D. Vance announced that the Department of Justice would be creating an assistant attorney general position specifically for investigating fraud in Minnesota, Ohio, and California. It might benefit this investigator to know about a nonprofit led by a prominent member of Columbus Ohio’s Somali community that has received over $1 million in federal, state, and local tax dollars while demonstrating some unorthodox bookkeeping.

The group is a private foundation with just one board member who pays himself more than $100,000 per year. There are no records of the group ever undergoing an audit nor using independent accountants, and its tax forms are full of vague “other expenses” with no named vendors or independent contractors.

The group’s ostensible purpose is to help immigrant convicts avoid going to jail again through job placement and housing assistance. The group’s founder just happens to own for-profit companies that provide second-chance employment and housing. To top it off, the group and its related for-profits are based out of an office that houses an entire network of immigration NGO’s that have received a combined $11 million in tax dollars.

To be clear, this article provides no concrete proof of and makes no allegations about any illegality. But at best the structure and bookkeeping of the group (or lack thereof) should flag the interest of the relevant investigators.

Rosiak isn’t a government investigator, but rather–like CRC–is an investigator of government. He read Thayer’s report and rang him up to see if Parker wanted to join him on a trip to Columbus to dig deeper into the UNIK mystery. The answers they uncovered led only to more mysteries and concerns. Thayer became a named contributor on the five-part Daily Wire investigative series. The reports were posted in May.

Here are the links to the five parts, plus an addendum:

1. DW Investigation Reveals One Of The Biggest Government Waste Scandals Hiding In Plain Sight
2. Inside Ohio’s Home Health Empire: 7 Buildings, 288 Medicaid Companies, $250 Million—A single landlord owned seven desolate buildings filled with home healthcare companies billing taxpayers millions. We went to see them.
3. Meet The Convicted Fraudster Running A Million Dollar Medicaid Business—‘Medicaid Millions’ investigation finds convicted fraudsters at the helm of business billing the government millions.
4. He Was Convicted For Defrauding The Government. Now Medicaid Pays His Wife Millions—A Medicaid company at the address of a convicted fraudster? No problem, says Ohio
5. Refugees From Bhutan Billed Medicaid Millions. Now They Drink Champagne In Private Jet— Ohio home health care companies are funding parties at the president of Nepal’s house

• Addendum: Ohio Says Safeguards Exist To Stop Medicaid Fraud, But Admits Massive Loophole—As Medicaid spending skyrocketed, Ohio made one of the only available tools to stop fraud optional

On May 19, after the full series had posted, Thayer and Rosiak appeared on the Capital Research Center’s “Who Funds That?” podcast to discuss what they had discovered: “Who Funds That?” Episode 5: Ohio’s Medicaid Millions.

Additional coverage included:

• Newsmax TV interview of Thayer and Rosiak
• 2^ndNewsmax TV interview of Thayer
• Free the Economy (Competitive Enterprises Institute podcast) interview of Thayer
• The Jesse Kelly Show podcast interview of Thayer