Sekou Dukuly had quite a résumé. He was running Liberia's government-owned port system while remaining the licensed director of three Minnesota group homes more than 5,000 miles away.
From APM Reports:
In 2024, at a ceremony in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, an emcee praised the business acumen of Sekou Dukuly, the newly installed director of the West African nation’s government-owned port system.
Dukuly had been “delivering multimillion-dollar profit increases everywhere he worked,” the emcee said.
Dukuly didn’t make his money in international shipping, however. He cashed in on Minnesota’s booming group home industry.
Minnesota companies linked to Dukuly collected at least $36 million in taxpayer funds over the past 10 years, according to Minnesota Open Checkbook, a state website that provides transparency in government spending. Dukuly has had a hand in businesses that have run at least two dozen group homes, almost all in the northwestern suburbs of the Twin Cities. The state issued licenses and paid Medicaid dollars for those businesses to provide care and supervision to Minnesotans, typically those with mental illnesses or physical disabilities.
But an investigation by MPR News and its national investigative unit, APM Reports, shows that Dukuly’s financial success has come at a human cost, with multiple instances of residents being neglected and even dying in group homes linked to him. And the money has gone into bank accounts tied to alleged financial schemes in Minnesota and abroad — raising questions about the state’s oversight of the group home industry and the billions of dollars that have flowed into it.
Companies linked to him collected at least $36 million in taxpayer money over the past decade while operating two dozen group homes caring for some of Minnesota's most vulnerable people.
The money alone should've attracted attention.
From APM Reports:
The Minnesota Department of Human Services is suspending payments to all group home companies affiliated with a high-ranking government official in Liberia, citing “credible allegations of Medicaid fraud,” following an MPR News and APM Reports investigation this week. The Department of Health says it will shut down three group homes he managed and will transfer their residents to other facilities.
The investigation published Monday found that Sekou Dukuly, the managing director of Liberia’s National Port Authority, had been the director at three Golden Touch Health Care group homes since 2025. Even though he lived thousands of miles away, Dukuly told a state licensing board he was personally in charge of day-to-day operations at the company’s facilities in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center — until a reporter contacted him last week.
The Human Services Department confirmed Thursday it had placed “payment withholds” on assisted living facilities affiliated with Dukuly. An agency spokesperson said the pause is used “to protect taxpayer dollars” during an investigation “when there are credible allegations of Medicaid fraud.”
“Payment withholds are not, by themselves, a finding that fraud has occurred,” the spokesperson added. “This can only be determined in court.”
Citing the lack of leadership at three facilities and the disruption in state payments, the Health Department issued an immediate temporary suspension and revocation of Golden Touch Health Care’s three licenses. The agency said it had "determined there are licensing violations that pose an imminent risk of harm to the health or safety of residents" and will find new homes for people living there.
“Golden Touch does not have a licensed assisted living director, and the prior assisted living director was not regularly engaged at the facility,” the three notices said. “Without appropriate leadership in place, the disruption in payment will create an imminent risk to the health and safety of residents.”
The human record should've set off alarms. State authorities investigated suspected maltreatment at Dukuly-linked facilities at least 22 times. Four cases involved resident deaths; in one case, a 46-year-old woman with a serious lung condition collapsed on a bathroom floor and died.
The state found that staff members had not been trained in CPR. The facility is appealing the neglect finding.
Minnesota eventually acted. The Department of Human Services suspended payments to Dukuly-affiliated providers, citing "credible allegations of Medicaid fraud," while the Department of Health moved to close three homes he had managed.
I know we all know this, but I'd be remiss if I didn't write it: a fraud allegation isn't a conviction, and nobody should pretend $36 million was proven stolen.
But Minnesota's newest audit raises a far more uncomfortable question: How did the oversight system operate while all of this was happening?
The Office of the Legislative Auditor released its review of assisted-living licensing Wednesday. It wasn't an investigation of Dukuly, an important point.
Instead, auditors examined the state system responsible for licensing and overseeing facilities like these. What they found helps explain how warning signs can live comfortably inside a bureaucracy.
Minnesota's Department of Health wasn't inspecting assisted-living facilities as frequently as state law requires. It hadn't established clear standards for imposing sanctions such as conditional or suspended licenses.
Facilities could self-report the services they offered, while the department didn't ensure those descriptions were accurate.
It gets worse.
The public "report cards" used to rate assisted-living facilities don't incorporate information from maltreatment investigations. Imagine a family trying to decide where a vulnerable parent should live. A state maltreatment investigation seems like information worth knowing before signing the paperwork.
Auditors also found the Department of Health hadn't enforced the requirement that a director overseeing more than one facility receive approval from the state licensing board.
Remember Dukuly?
He was listed as director of three Minnesota facilities while serving as managing director of Liberia's National Port Authority.
Then comes the money. The audit found that Health Department records didn't always give Human Services clear information about facility licensing status or capacity, making it harder to verify whether Medicaid was paying eligible providers.
Auditors concluded that Minnesota's payment-verification procedures "may not catch certain types of misbilling."
Four Minnesota Republican members of Congress — Brad Finstad, Pete Stauber, Tom Emmer, and Michelle Fischbach, have demanded answers from Gov. Tim "Jazz Hands" Walz.
From Emmer's press release:
We write today to express our profound concern regarding the recent report of a Liberian government official receiving federally funded, state administered taxpayer dollars. 1 This is yet another failure of your administration in safeguarding public funds.
The latest allegations involving Golden Touch Health Care represent yet another troubling example. According to recent reporting, companies linked to Sekou Dukuly, who is a high ranking official in Liberia, received approximately $36 million in taxpayer funds over the past decade to operate group homes for vulnerable Minnesotans. During that period, state authorities investigated suspected maltreatment at affiliated facilities on at least 22 occasions, including cases involving resident deaths and substantiated neglect in multiple cases.
While the Minnesota Department of Health has suspended payments to affiliated providers, citing credible allegations of Medicaid fraud, and has moved to close three facilities, this appears to be another example of your administration acting only after journalists, whistleblowers, or federal investigators expose serious misconduct.
These allegations are deeply concerning, but they are not occurring in isolation. Minnesota taxpayers have repeatedly learned of alleged fraud and misuse involving Medicaid services, child care assistance, housing programs, and other publicly funded programs. This is a systematic failure of your administration’s oversight mechanisms that continues to permeate across the state.
Minnesotans deserve to know why warning signs continue to be missed and why providers facing serious allegations remain eligible to receive taxpayer dollars. They also deserve confidence that state agencies are taking proactive steps to prevent fraud instead of simply responding after public funds have already been lost and vulnerable residents have been placed at risk.
As a result of your failures, our state is under a microscope and providers who have done everything by the book are being punished by these bad actors draining our state’s resources. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) continues to withhold Medicaid dollars from the state because additional fraud continues to be uncovered with no accountability coming from your administration.
Minnesotans are tired of learning about another alleged fraud scheme only after billions of taxpayer dollars have been placed at risk. They deserve transparency, accountability, and lasting reform.
Their letter points to the $36 million, the maltreatment investigations, and what they describe as a pattern of Minnesota officials reacting after trouble becomes public rather than preventing it.
Walz's administration can point to payment suspensions, license revocations, increased fraud investigations, and changes already underway. The auditor also credited state agencies for doing some licensing work well, and both departments accepted recommendations for improvement.
None of it answers the central question.
Minnesota built a system to protect vulnerable people and taxpayer money. Its own auditor has now documented missed inspections, weak sanctions, incomplete public information, fragmented oversight, and payment controls capable of missing misbilling.
The problem isn't merely that someone may have figured out how to exploit the system.
Minnesota's government left too many doors unlocked.
Minnesota taxpayers deserve better than learning where the holes were after millions have already gone through them.
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