The most effective drug seizing teams in the entire country.

I said, I wish I told them earlier, take them and put them in every major city in the country.

4:22 a.m.

Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The city was buried in winter ice.

The streets were empty.

The parked cars frozen in place under a layer of frost.

To the 42,000 residents of the Cedar Riverside community, the building at the end of the block was a place of leadership.

It was the district office of Senator Ahmed Nure, but outside the silence was about to break.

A long line of unmarked black federal vehicles rolled to a stop.

58 agents from the FBI and DEA stepped slowly out into the bitter cold.

There were no sirens, no warning lights, only intent.

Agents formed a stack at the main entrance.

Badges covered, weapons ready.

A breaching hammer slammed against the heavy oak door.

Once, twice.

 

 

On the third hit, the frame splintered.

Federal agents, move, move.

Agents rushed in, sweeping every room with precision.

First, consider that 80,000 Somali Americans call Minnesota home.

Soon, upwards of a hundred ICE agents could be targeting them who living here.

Many understandably nervous.

Flashlights cut through the darkness of the senator’s office.

Instead of harmless folders or constituent mail, they uncovered the infrastructure of a cartel.

Behind a false ventilation panel near the main desk, agents pulled out 23 sealed bricks of high-grade cocaine.

Each one was stamped with a cartel insignia.

This wasn’t a user’s stash.

This was a distributor’s inventory.

In a tightly locked steel safe bolted to the floor, drilling teams forced the door open.

Inside, they found $4.

7 million in cash, stacked neatly, banded by size and serial number.

It was more cash than the entire neighborhood’s bank branch held in its vault.

But the most alarming discovery sat right on Ahmed Nure’s mahogany desk, a satellite phone, still active, blinking with a notification.

The screen displayed encrypted instructions linking Minneapolis to financial hubs in Nairobi, Moadishu, and Dubai.

This was a full-scale money laundering pipeline operating out of a US senator’s office.

This was not a mistake.

It was a system deliberately built by the very man his community trusted most.

If you believe that politicians caught trafficking drugs should face the same justice as street dealers, hit the like button and comment, “No Somali below.

” The deeper the investigation went, the more the betrayal stung.

Senator Ahmed Nure, now 58 years old, had long been viewed as a bridge between cultures.

 

 

At public events, he spoke about education and safety.

In truth, he was using that office to build a network.

FBI agents raided a Bloomington business on Thursday after prosecutors say it built Medicaid.

Over more than 6 years, that network changed from political ambition to organized crime.

Beneath the polite surface, almost invisible to the public, an underground structure was growing.

through 27 shell companies, more than $79 million in cash, and $220 million in transfers passed through programs connected to his name.

Investigators later recovered video from surveillance cameras.

It showed Ahmed Nure meeting regularly with Yaha Osman, a 34year-old man linked directly to the Sinaloa cartel.

Nure protected him for years.

Their meetings were quiet and short basement rooms, rented storage spaces.

Nure never stayed longer than 20 minutes.

He was not there to give speeches.

He was there to approve the movement of tons of narcotics into the country.

The senator used five different cell phones, each with a separate number.

Those phones connected him to officers.

Twin Cities leaders are preparing for a federal immigration crackdown as soon as this week.

CBS News is reporting ICE will launch an operation targeting Somali with deportation orders who live in Minnesota.

Officials and even judges, some received money, some believed they were helping national security.

One by one, they stopped asking questions.

But when the full threat began to emerge, Nure was already preparing.

Among the discoveries was a shipment containing 62 cargo loads labeled as supplies but filled with drugs.

Agents were stunned.

 

 

This was not street crime.

This was organized activity carried out with the tools normally used for war.

A man trusted to defend his community had used that trust to build a hidden empire.

The investigation had grown too large to remain confined to paperwork.

Maps were pinned across the walls of the command center.

Red marks indicated dangerous sites.

Every drawn line pointed toward one place, the basement behind a non-escript community building on the outskirts of Minneapolis.

It looked isolated from the outside, but in reality, it was an active hub where money, weapons, and drugs moved every night.

A plan was put together immediately.

It was called Operation Northern Sweep.

For the first time in modern history, the FBI, US military units, and more than 100 federal agencies prepared for a coordinated assault targeting 29 locations at the same time before dawn without warning.

Democratic leaders in Minnesota slamming the Trump administration over reports of planned immigration enforcement targeting Somalians and the Twin Cities.

It comes after President Trump criticized the group during a cabinet meeting.

At 4:30 a.

m.

, 19 minutes before the senator’s office was breached, the operation began.

Black helicopters flew low over frozen fields.

Drones cast beams of light across the ground.

Dozens of FBI armored vehicles roared toward the gates of the manufacturing complex.

When they hit the first barricade, the ground shook.

Sparks burst from metal.

The gates were forced aside.

Agents moved forward in waves.

Explosive charges blew open side doors.

Flash grenades turned darkness into blinding white light.

We are tracking the court cases for every official involved in this scandal.

Hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss the updates.

Inside, the complex felt like a maze.

Laboratories, storage rooms, reinforced bunkers.

The air was thick with the smell of chemicals.

Teams advanced room by room.

Gunfire echoed through the dark.

Armed guards opened fire from behind stacked crates.

The firefight was brief but intense.

When it ended, several suspects were faced down on the concrete.

Then the real shock appeared.

Behind a steel door secured by three separate locks, agents found a full production line, stainless steel tanks.

One day after President Trump escalated tensions with America’s Somali community, they contribute nothing.

I don’t want them in our country.

Conveyor belts, racks of chemical containers.

It was a functioning drug manufacturing facility protected by a security system resembling a military installation.

Nearby, crates of ammunition were stacked beside body armor.

In another room, teams discovered a command center, screens, maps, encrypted radios, and on the wall, a photograph showing a police sergeant smiling in uniform, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with gang leaders.

The fortress had fallen, but the raid did not end when the doors were broken.

When the last man was taken away, the work shifted to the evidence room.

Agents opened a large metal cabinet containing files labeled with friendly names, community development, youth outreach.

They sounded harmless, but the numbers told another story.

Nearly every folder contained receipts for large amounts of money, signed quickly, approved with no questions.

There were transfers for $83,000, $120,000, all approved in minutes, sometimes in the middle of the night.

A team of financial analysts compared bank statements and city approvals.

Gradually, patterns appeared.

A councilman in one suburb had signed six permits in just 12 minutes.

A police captain received a security consulting fee.

On the same day, a suspicious truck passed through his district.

a clinic build $1.

9 million for services that were never provided.

One elderly clerk who had worked at city hall for 27 years began to cry when she saw the documents.

I gave them those permits because they said it was for the children, she whispered.

The truth was heavy.

This was not bribery, whispered in dark alleys.

This was bribery done with forms, stamps, and official seals.

A second room held something different.

On long tables were maps printed from satellite images.

Pinpoints marked warehouses, basement, and river docks.

Every location was connected by a line.

According to press reports, the operation could begin within days.

The move comes as President Trump has disparaged Somali with increasingly inflammatory rhetoric.

It looked like a web, not a criminal hiding place, but a transportation system.

Near the maps were handwritten notebooks.

One notebook listed monthly payments to a police officer, $41,200, every month for almost 2 years.

Another list showed names of small businesses.

Next to each name was a number.

Some were low, $600.

Others were much higher, $37,000.

No services were provided.

The money simply moved.

There were emails as well.

One message read, “Approve the transfer.

No delay.

” Another said, “Warehouse ready.

Do not inspect.

” As the evidence was sorted, a difficult realization spread.

The network was not built by outsiders.

It was built by insiders who allowed it to happen.

Every document had been signed.

Every shipment had been waved through.

In the late afternoon, a special meeting was held.

The lead prosecutor stood before a long table.

Her voice was steady.

“We are not looking at one criminal,” she said.

“We are looking at a structure.

A structure that has existed for years inside public life.

” When the sun rose after the raid, Minneapolis looked the same from a distance.

But when people stepped outside, they noticed something different.

The city was quieter.

The flashing lights were gone, but the yellow tape remained on doors and fences.

Uh and so in speaking with several people who currently live there and work there in that city, um you know, they’ve seen a lot of this uh a lot of the confrontation, but they do say that it’s isolated to certain parts of the city.

Specifically, residents stood on their porches longer than usual.

Newspapers arrived early.

The headlines were large.

Major raid in Minneapolis, 29 locations hit, $245 kilos of drugs seized, $52 million in cash recovered.

For many older residents, the numbers were difficult to believe.

They had trusted the buildings where the raids took place.

They donated money.

They volunteered.

Now the names in the newspaper were familiar and that made it painful.

A retired teacher whispered to herself.

I used to go to meetings in that building.

She wasn’t angry.

She was hurt.

She had believed in the people who worked there.

Inside coffee shops, conversations were soft.

I never thought this could happen here.

One man said, “We voted for him.

He looked like a good man.

” At a local diner, men in heavy coats sat around a long table.

One man tapped the newspaper and said, “If a judge and a senator can do this, who can we trust?” A week after the raids, the courthouse steps were crowded.

Some held signs, “We deserve the truth.

Who protected us?” It was not an angry crowd.

It was a disappointed one.

Banks were quieter.

A small branch in the northern part of the city closed for 3 days.

Its director had been arrested.

Parents were anxious.

They remembered the vans parked outside schools a few months earlier.

One mother said, “I feel foolish.

I thought it was school supplies.

” Trust had been the first victim.

But in that silence, something else began.

Neighbors checked on each other.

Doors that had been locked only at night were now locked during the day.

It was not fear that changed them.

It was awareness.

They had learned that danger did not always come from outside.

Sometimes it came from inside their own institutions.

No one claimed the city was healed.

Healing takes time, but people were talking again.

The raids were over, but the consequences had just begun.

The community now faced a new and difficult question.

How do you rebuild trust once it has been broken? A reporter asked a federal agent, “Is the danger gone?” He answered with a gentle smile.

“No, danger never disappears, but neither does courage.

” The war was not over, but the city was standing again.

Stay vigilant.