Abdulrahman Ayman Alawad, a 25-year-old Syrian national living in El Cajon, California, personally collected more than $300,000 in government payments for childcare services. There were no children. There was no childcare.
He wasn't alone. Eleven other people were arrested alongside him.
A federal task force arrested all twelve on September 10 in San Diego as part of Operation Cradle to Grift — and the name, for once, matches the crime perfectly. According to the Justice Department's National Fraud Enforcement Division, the defendants billed the government for $10 million in daycare services that never existed. Nine of the twelve entered the United States as refugees or asylum seekers from Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan.
Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald, who heads the fraud division, described the scheme in terms that don't require much interpretation: "There were no children. There were no daycares. These daycares were fake and the taxpayers were paying for all of it."
The individual payouts ranged from $538,000 to $1.2 million per defendant over the duration of the scheme. Each defendant faces federal wire fraud charges carrying a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. Some face additional money laundering charges.
The full roster: Alawad and four relatives — Mohamad Alawad, 29, Mazin Alawad, 22, and Turkiya Alawad, 63, all of San Diego, plus Khetam Haouash, 37, of El Cajon. Fosiya Mohamoud, 50, and Zetun Abdi, 43, both Somali nationals. Ikramullah Mohmmand, 25, Khatera Hashimi, 39, and Zaryab Daudzai, 25 — all Afghan nationals from El Cajon. Mariam Khamis, 42, a Sudanese national in San Diego. And Cezar Yaqoob, 36, an Iraqi national from El Cajon.
Five of the twelve share the surname Alawad. This wasn't twelve strangers who stumbled into the same fraud. This was a family operation with hired help.
U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon of the Southern District of California and IRS Criminal Investigations Chief Jarod Koopman coordinated the arrests. Vice President JD Vance, who chairs the DOJ's National Fraud Enforcement Division, has made benefit fraud by non-citizens a stated enforcement priority.
The refugee resettlement process is built on a compact. The United States extends protection to people fleeing persecution, and those people are expected to rebuild their lives lawfully in return. Nine of the twelve defendants entered through that system. They settled in El Cajon and San Diego — communities that absorbed them, provided housing assistance, and connected them to the social services they later allegedly exploited.
The defense will be that twelve individuals don't represent an entire refugee population. They don't. But $10 million in fabricated daycare invoices — billed to the same taxpayers who funded the resettlement — represents something specific about how the system fails to verify what it pays for. The fraud wasn't sophisticated. There were no daycares. There were no children. Someone was writing checks without looking.
Twelve arrests. $10 million. Zero children served.
Operation Cradle to Grift.