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Nevins says the sheer number of similar companies operating out of the same address raised immediate concerns. When asked whether he believes the businesses are legitimate, he didn’t sugarcoat his response.
“Some, yes, but some I highly question,” he said.
That clustering pattern is a known red flag. Investigators with the House Oversight Committee in Minnesota previously identified nearly identical setups—multiple home health care providers operating from the same locations—as key indicators of widespread fraud. In that case, investigators concluded that billions of taxpayer dollars were siphoned off through Somali-linked shell companies billing Medicaid for services that were never provided.
Maine appears to be facing a disturbingly similar scenario.
One company formerly renting space in Nevins’ building, Five Star Home Health Care, was found to have overbilled MaineCare by nearly $400,000, according to state audit records obtained by The Maine Wire. Shortly afterward, the company abandoned its office entirely.
“I can’t even reach him. Six months, I can’t. No return calls, no return texts, nothing,” Nevins said. He added that the company left behind seven months of unpaid rent.
Despite the staggering amount of money involved, no meaningful action appears to have followed.
“There’s been no consequences, no investigation, no resolution to what happened with Five Stars Home Health Care,” said Steve Robinson, executive editor of The Maine Wire. “And that I think is something, that’s a story that we see play out time and time again with businesses throughout the home health care space, is that they can be just an office suite, just a post office box.”
Nevins eventually removed the Five Star sign from the door and is now attempting to lease the empty space—one more quiet cleanup after public funds were allegedly drained.
The issue is far from isolated. NewsNation documented similar clusters of home health care businesses in other Maine cities, including Lewiston. In some cases, the proximity of these companies to international money wiring services raised even more questions.
“We can see Ladna Home Health Care down there. That’s a $2 million home health care agency. You can see it’s located right next to two money wiring services. Right next to it, you have Dahab Shield. Dahab Shield is the official money wiring service of the Central Bank of Somalia,” Robinson said.
For Nevins, the situation hits close to home—not just as a landlord, but as a taxpayer.
“You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, you know?” he said. ”It ticks me off if they’re screwing the state of Maine, because that’s my tax money, you know? So yeah, it’s kind of irritating.”
He believes the scale of the problem is being dramatically underestimated.
“Expose the evil. I mean, my building might be small pennies in the grand scheme of things, but it’s still pennies, it’s still money. And you add up what’s going on all over the state of Maine, it’s probably millions and millions of dollars of fraud and abuse.”
As scrutiny mounts, the Trump administration announced on Wednesday a renewed crackdown targeting illegal immigration and fraud within the Somali community in Maine—signaling that federal authorities may finally be stepping in where the state has failed.
Whether that action comes in time to recover lost taxpayer dollars remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: Maine’s quiet office suites may be hiding a very loud scandal.
