Claim:
A Somali politician in Maine placed a murder bounty on a journalist who reported on the politician’s alleged Medicare fraud.
Rating:
Context
The claim jumbled details from reports from political outlets in Maine that said relatives of Abdullahi Ali, a Somali politician and businessman in Maine, threatened a journalist whose employer repeated critical reporting about Ali. Snopes verified that the comments in question appeared to be threats but could not independently verify the commenters’ reported relation to Ali.
In December 2025, a rumor circulated online that Abdullahi Ali, a Somali politician in Maine, had placed a murder bounty on a journalist who reported on allegations of Medicare fraud by Ali.
One X user who shared the claim wrote (archived):
BREAKING: A Somali politician in Maine has placed a BOUNTY on the head of a journalist for reporting fraud in Maine’s Mainecare (medical). WTF is happening in America?! Time to KICK these LOWLIFE’S OUT.
Users on Facebook (archived) and Instagram (archived) also shared a TikTok video (archived) that made the claim.
The alleged threats (archived, archived) came from Abdi Najib Abdullahi and Ayanle Abdullahi Aden, reportedly relatives of Ali, rather than Ali himself, according to reporting by The Robinson Report, a Substack blog belonging to Steve Robinson, an investigative and political reporter in Maine.
Snopes consulted a Somali speaker whose translation of the comments revealed that Aden appeared to offer “50 camels” to let a journalist’s blood “be spilled in the air” and Abdullahi said those in charge of Jubbaland Media would be “held accountable immediately.”
Claims that Ali, who ran for presidency in the Somalian state of Jubbaland in its disputed 2024 election but is not a political candidate in the U.S., placed a bounty on a journalist himself were false.
It was unclear whether Aden and Abdullahi — who appeared to issue threats to a a journalist whose employer reported critically on Ali — were related to Ali, as the The Robinson Report claimed.
Snopes reached out to Ali, Aden and Abdullahi to confirm whether the three were related and the intent behind the comments and await replies to our queries.
The comments and their writers
According to translations provided to Snopes by a Somali speaker, Abdullahi posted (archived) a picture of Sabriye Somali, reportedly a journalist with Jubbaland Media, on Facebook on Dec. 5, 2025.
Abdullahi wrote, “The young man who insulted the Jubbaland Media page is called Sabriye Somali. Brothers, I will say something later. They are so arrogant that they will not graze the trees.”
Abdullahi added in a comment, “If Jubbaland Media is a place where officials are being insulted, we know the men who are in charge and will be held accountable immediately.”
Aden also commented, “Let this one’s blood be spilled in the air. 50 camels are enough for us to get this done.”
According to Abdi Iftin, an author and columnist who also reported (archived) on the alleged threats, Abdullahi was Ali’s son and Aden his nephew, which was partly corroborated by a Facebook post (archived) on Aden’s profile.Â
Aden wrote that two men seen alongside him in the picture, one of whom was Abdullahi, were his cousins. If Abdullahi was Ali’s son, that would make Aden Ali’s nephew. Iftin told Snopes during a Dec. 9 phone call that he lived with Ali when he immigrated to the U.S. and knew Ali’s family, which was how he identified the commenters.
The Robinson Report claimed Aden was Ali’s second cousin rather than nephew.
Snopes has not independently verified this claim. Abdullahi and Aden both publicly criticized Iftin on their Facebook pages (archived, archived). Neither Ali nor Abdullahi’s profiles confirmed that the pair were father and son.
Adbullahi’s and Aden’s posts and comments appeared to be in response to a Dec. 4, 2025, post on Jubbaland Media’s Facebook page that repeated (archived) allegations by the Maine Wire, a news outlet run by the Maine Policy Institute, about alleged health care fraud by Ali. (The Maine Policy Institute calls itself nonpartisan but also describes itself as having a “center-right” reputation; other local news outlets have called it conservative.)
According to the Maine Wire, Ali’s company Gateway Community Services received $28.9 million from the U.S. government between 2019 and 2024. The report claimed Ali had spent some of that U.S. taxpayer money to fund a paramilitary group in his homeland of Somalia and build a political campaign there.
Ali reportedly owed almost $800,000 to state
We could not independently verify claims made by the Maine Wire and The Robinson Report about how much money Ali received from or owed to MaineCare, nor whether he used taxpayer money to fund paramilitary forces in Somalia or his political campaign there.Â
The Maine Wire reported that Ali’s Gateway Community Services owed MaineCare almost $800,000 from a state audit.
According to documents the outlet said it obtained through a Freedom of Access Act request, Maine officials audited Gateway Community Services in 2022 and found that more than one in three payments made to the company in 2017 and 2018 was made in error due to incorrect or lacking documentation. The Maine Department of Health and Human Services reportedly found it had overpaid Gateway Community Services $776,022.21, which the company would need to pay back.
According to The Robinson Report, Ali and Gateway Community Services had not cleared that debt by August 2025.
We reached out to the Maine health department to verify the documents The Robinson Report and the Maine Wire shared and await a reply.
Writing on Facebook (archived), Ali called the Maine Wire “a racist and hateful group.” He did not respond to allegations about his debt to the Maine DHHS or that he spent U.S. taxpayer money building a political campaign in Somalia, instead writing:
I am proud to have built a great business in Maine, served my community in Maine, earned my PhD in Maine, and now I am running for office in Jubaland. I am proud of that. I am honored to be able to support my people in Jubaland with my salary.
