A U.S. anti-terrorism agency placed a hold on investment funds raised by Rep. Ilhan Omar's husband and his business partner in August 2022, the partner claimed during a legal dispute, a revelation that adds a new dimension to the growing web of financial controversies surrounding the Minnesota Democrat and the men closest to her.
Will Hailer, the business partner of Omar's husband Tim Mynett, told investors that the Office of Foreign Assets Control had frozen funds belonging to their marijuana venture, Badlands Ventures, the Washington Free Beacon reported. OFAC sits inside the Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and enforces economic sanctions against foreign terrorists and rogue regimes.
The claim surfaced in legal filings after investors sued to recover more than $1.6 million they say was misappropriated. The Free Beacon noted it was unable to independently verify the alleged OFAC hold, and the Treasury Department did not return requests for comment.
The timeline begins in August 2022, when Hailer and Mynett raised $1.683 million from angel investors for Badlands Ventures, a South Dakota marijuana business. That same month, investors sued after Hailer promised to wire hundreds of thousands of dollars but claimed OFAC had placed a hold on the funds.
The plaintiffs' filing was blunt. Investors alleged that Hailer and Mynett "moved at least some, and perhaps all, of Plaintiffs' $1.683 million out of Badlands Ventures' bank account for purposes other than Badlands Ventures' business" and that the money had been "misappropriated and/or stolen." The lawsuit went further, alleging the pair formed Badlands "with the present intention of stealing and/or misappropriating" their money.
The investors also challenged the OFAC explanation on its face. Their filing stated: "This explanation makes no sense, as all of Badlands Ventures' funds came from Plaintiffs who reside domestically." OFAC, after all, targets foreign sanctions violators, not domestic angel investors pooling cash for a marijuana startup in South Dakota.
Michael Rubin, policy analysis director at the Middle East Forum, offered a pointed interpretation of what an OFAC hold would mean if it did occur:
"OFAC is a technocratic agency; they don't defer to political spin. So for a hold to be put on the funds suggests the scheme involved diversion of money to some very, very bad people."
At the time of the alleged freeze, Omar sat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the very panel that conducts oversight of OFAC. House Republicans expelled her from the committee in February 2023 after she repeated antisemitic tropes.
Discovery documents reviewed in February 2024 painted a picture of financial wreckage across every entity Hailer and Mynett operated. eST Ventures had five cents in its bank account. eStCru, their California winery venture, held $650. Rose Lake Capital had $42.44. Rose Lake Inc. had $10. Hailer himself claimed just $3.05 in his personal checking account.
Then, somehow, the money appeared.
Badlands returned $500,000 to investors in October 2023. The final $1.2 million was repaid in July 2024. One unnamed investor told the New York Post he was "shocked" Hailer could come up with the money so shortly after claiming financial insolvency. The source of those funds remains unclear.
The pattern of financial trouble extended beyond marijuana. Omar has faced a long trail of questions about her financial dealings, including allegations that she steered millions in public funds to a clinic run by her sister.
Washington, D.C. businessman Naeem Mohd sued Hailer and Mynett in October 2023 for $780,000, alleging they duped him into investing in eStCru on false representations about the winery business. That lawsuit was settled in November 2024, with Mohd's attorney confirming: "We did settle and the amount was paid." The winery itself had already filed to terminate its California business license in April 2024. In legal filings, Mynett and Hailer blamed COVID for the closure.
Erica Stancliff, the eStCru winemaker, told the Minnesota Reformer she abruptly stopped getting paid in early 2023, well before the formal shutdown.
The most striking financial episode involves Rose Lake Capital, another Hailer-Mynett entity. In November 2024 testimony during the Byju bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware, Hailer described receiving two wires totaling $11.25 million in June 2024.
Hailer initially told the court the funds originated "from a Cayman Island firm run by Indian billionaire Ranjan Pai" and that they were routed "from Dubai to Mauritius to the UK to the USA." He stated Rose Lake received the wires "to show the firm had the funds necessary to acquire the Term Loan B, as well as 'to pay for our services.'"
But Indian billionaire Byju Raveendran, the bankrupt owner of the Byju educational technology company, later demanded the $11.25 million back, telling Hailer the funds actually came from OCI Limited, a UK firm, not from Ranjan Pai. Raveendran warned that non-return "was going to cause criminal or civil issues for Byju in Dubai because of UAE law."
The Delaware bankruptcy court ultimately ordered Raveendran to pay $1.07 billion related to Byju's Term Loan B issues. The question of why $11.25 million in international wires, routed through four jurisdictions, landed in the accounts of a firm with no assets under direct management and no SEC registration remains open.
Rose Lake Capital, it turned out, had never made an investment with its own capital and never registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Broader questions about financial transparency in Democratic fundraising circles have also drawn scrutiny, with ActBlue facing allegations it misled Congress about screening foreign donations.
Rose Lake Capital also listed advisers who say they never agreed to serve. Former U.S. Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, said he discussed a proposed storage unit deal with Hailer in 2022 and 2023. The deal went nowhere. Baucus later found his name on the Rose Lake adviser list.
"He stopped writing his emails about the investment, about how well he's doing, all that stuff. You can read between the lines, it sounded a little bit fishy."
Another former listed adviser, unnamed in the reporting, was even more direct. This person met Mynett once for five minutes and Hailer a handful of times to discuss a potential energy investment in South Africa. The deal never materialized, and no money changed hands.
"That deal never went anywhere and I never had any agreement or ever received a dime from Rose Lake Capital. I was much surprised later to find out I'd been listed as an advisor and asked them to remove me."
Hailer told the Minnesota Reformer that Rose Lake had been restructured into a public benefit corporation focused on "socially responsible investing." The Rose Lake Capital website has since been taken down.
Omar's own financial disclosures have raised separate red flags. Her reported net worth surged to between $6 million and $30 million in 2024. She later drastically reduced the figure, claiming an accounting error. The GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee is investigating Omar and Mynett's finances, including the net worth discrepancies.
A Rose Lake spokesman told the New York Post in January that Mynett netted less than $20,000 from all his companies in 2024. But financial records reviewed by the Wall Street Journal showed Rose Lake Capital distributed $213,000 directly to Mynett that year, more than ten times the claimed figure.
Meanwhile, the Biden Justice Department opened its own investigation into Omar in 2024. The New York Times reported the probe was designed "to scrutinize her finances, campaign spending and interactions with a foreign citizen." The Times also reported the investigation "appears to have stalled for lack of evidence." Omar is also facing scrutiny in a federal criminal probe into entitlement fraud in the Minneapolis Somali community.
Progressive members of Congress are no strangers to controversy over foreign entanglements, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, for instance, recently faced backlash over meetings with Cuba's communist regime. But the combination of an alleged anti-terror fund freeze, millions routed through offshore jurisdictions, phantom business advisers, and a net worth that ballooned and then deflated on command puts Omar's situation in a category of its own.
Neither Hailer nor Mynett returned requests for comment from the Free Beacon. Omar did not respond either.
President Trump, speaking at a rally in central Florida earlier this month, addressed the matter: "I would imagine they're looking at her. I have nothing to do with it." At the White House Cabinet Room on Wednesday, he added: "Ilhan Omar, crooked as h***. They're all crooks. And we got 'em.... We're putting the clamps on."
Set aside the political noise and look at what the filings show. Investors allege they were robbed. A business partner claimed a U.S. anti-terror agency froze domestic funds, an explanation the investors themselves called nonsensical. Discovery documents revealed bank balances measured in pennies. Then millions materialized from undisclosed sources to settle lawsuits and quiet complaints. An $11.25 million wire bounced through Dubai, Mauritius, and London before landing at a firm with no assets, no SEC registration, and advisers who didn't know they were advisers.
The Biden DOJ looked into it and apparently lost interest. House Republicans have not.
When the money trail runs through four countries and nobody can explain where the cash came from, the public deserves answers, not accounting errors and restructured websites.
