themainewire.com · Steve Robinson · September 8, 2026
Womp, Womp: Somali Refugee Accused of MaineCare Fraud Loses $1 Million Home After Tax Liens - The Maine Wire
# Womp, Womp: Somali Refugee Accused of MaineCare Fraud Loses $1 Million Home After Tax Liens
More than a year after the Maine Wire originally exposed Gateway Community Service’s for improperly billing Medicaid, Somali-American founder Abdullahi Ali has lost his home to foreclosure.
By Steve Robinson
September 8, 2026 Updated: September 8, 2026 No Comments 7 Mins Read
Bangor Savings Bank has moved to foreclose on the Falmouth home of Abdullahi Ali, the Somali-American refugee poster child whose company collected roughly $5 million per year in MaineCare payments before the Maine Wire exposed allegations of systemic fraud and multiple failed audits the state had kept quiet.
Ali’s company, Gateway Community Services LLC, and its 501(c)(3) arm, Gateway Community Services Maine, were among the top recipients of Medicaid funding in the state of Maine from 2018 to 2025, according to MaineCare payment records obtained via a Freedom of Access Act request.
In addition, Ali was awarded multiple lucrative no-bid contracts from the Mills administration — and he received nearly $700,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yet with all that taxpayer money flowing into his bank account, Ali somehow forgot to pay his taxes in 2023 and 2024.
Cumberland County tax lien and foreclosure records filed against the bougie million-dollar home Ali owned in the wealthy suburb of Portland show that the top Democrat activist owes $44,082.54 in back taxes and will no longer be able to sell his house.
A clerk’s certificate filed in Cumberland County Superior Court identifies Ali as the defendant and Maine Revenue Services as a party in interest in a case that concerns the Hardy Road property Ali put on the market for $1 million earlier this year, while he was reportedly spending much of his time in Kenya and Dubai.
The Cumberland County records appear to foreshadow a fight between Bangor Savings Bank and the state of Maine over who will get paid back first — if at all.
It’s not clear how the Somali-American refugee was able to continue fraudulently billing Medicaid and receiving no-bid contracts from the Mills administration for several years while failing to pay his own income taxes.
Gov. Janet Mills (D) poses with former Gateway Asst. Exec. Dir. State Rep. Deqa Dhalac, Gateway CEO Abdullahi Ali, and former Gateway employee turned Office of New Americans policy analyst Ekhlas Ahmed
The foreclosure filing might be the only justice Maine taxpayers get, as no charges have been filed in relation to Gateway Community Services and Ali has refused to return from Africa since the Maine Wire exposed the fraudulent conduct of his business, a so-called “migrant services” agency at the center of the Maine Democratic Party’s power structure.
Indeed, rather than file charges in the Gateway case, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey awarded the migrant agency $400,000 in opioid settlement money last year.
For years, the company received millions of dollars annually through Maine’s Medicaid program while Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) auditors continually found the company had overbilled the program. Even though three state audits found Gateway improperly billed MaineCare for more than $1.6 million in services, the state never stopped shoveling money into the agency until the Maine Wire published the audits and whistleblower allegations.
As first reported in March of 2025, Gateway is intricately tied to the Maine Democratic Party: Rep. Deqa Dhalac (D-South Portland) served as an assistant executive director; Rep. Yusuf Yusuf (D-Portland) worked for the company before going on to found his own home health care agency; Ekhlas Ahmed, a former Gateway employee, now works as the “policy analyst” for the Office of New Americans, formed by Gov. Janet Mills but based on a bill from Dhalac; and Safiya Khalid, a Democratic activist in Lewiston, worked as an assistant to Ali before starting Gateway’s political arm, the Community Organizing Alliance (COA).
Now Ali faces a bank’s attempt to foreclose on his home, with the state’s tax collection agency also named in the proceeding.
The Robinson Report reported in January that Ali had listed the 3,312-square-foot property for $1 million shortly after Homeland Security Investigations agents appeared at Gateway’s Lewiston office.
That report cited Ali’s public social media posts placing him largely in Kenya and Dubai following his unsuccessful 2024 campaign for president of Jubaland, a region of Somalia.
Ali’s overseas political ambitions helped bring his Maine business dealings under scrutiny.
In March 2025, The Maine Wire reported that Gateway Community Services LLC had received roughly $5 million per year in MaineCare payments from 2019 through 2025, according to records obtained under a Freedom of Access Act request. During that period, Ali also publicly described helping finance armed forces in Somalia, including purchases of weapons, ammunition and food.
Ali bragged that the militia he was funding — during a period when we now know he was not paying taxes on the more than $400,000 per year he earned from his government-funded gig — would be used to topple the sitting president of Jubaland after the 2024 “election.”
The scrutiny intensified when former Gateway billing specialist Christopher Bernardini came forward. In allegations first published in this Substack in May 2025, Bernardini said supervisors fabricated service hours and inflated Medicaid claims at Ali’s direction.
According to documents Bernardini provided to The Robinson Report, the former Gateway employee submitted a complaint to Maine State Auditor Matt Dunlap (D) in 2024 to report suspected fraud, but he never heard back from the Office of the State Auditor (OSA).
Dunlap is now the Democratic nominee for Maine’s Second Congressional District.
Rather than moving swiftly to investigate and shut down Gateway, Maine Revenue Services sent Bernardini a letter informing him that it was auditing his taxes. Because he had moved to Florida during the Covid-19 shutdowns and Gateway had continued withholding taxes from his paycheck as if he were a Maine resident, the audit process determined that the state in fact owed Bernardini a substantial sum in overpaid taxes.
Bernardini also believes that he was wrongfully terminated from Gateway for blowing the whistle; however, every employment law firm he’s approached about suing Gateway for back pay has turned down his case.
“I chose integrity over a cushy job,” Bernardini said.
Gateway has denied fraud.
In response to our reporting, Ali called the Maine Wire “racist and hateful” in a post to X.
“I make no apologies for building a successful business in Maine,” he said.
DHHS, meanwhile, identified substantial repayment obligations. Two earlier reviews resulted in demands for approximately $125,000 and $537,550 after adjustments. A subsequent audit covering March 2021 through December 2022 identified more than $1 million in additional questioned billings.
On December 23, 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services suspended MaineCare payments to Gateway after determining there was a “credible allegation of fraud.” DHHS upheld the suspension in May. Gateway then missed its July 17 deadline to appeal, The Maine Wire reported.
Now, Maine Revenue Services has identified $44,082.54 in unpaid state income taxes.
Gateway has attributed the disputed billings to documentation deficiencies, changing guidance and administrative errors, as opposed to the intentional fraud alleged by Bernardini.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows poses with Sen. Jill Duson and new Gateway CEO Nathan Davis at a Community Organizing Alliance event.
Gateway is now being led by State Sen. Jill Duson (D-Cumberland)’s son, Nathan Davis.
Will Mainers ever get paid back for the Medicaid fraud Ali