Rep. Kristin Robbins said Minnesota is “an outlier” as a state in terms of the amount of cash leaving its airport. She stated that, despite the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport being the 16th-largest airport, it has the most cash flowing out of it of any airport in the nation.
(The Center Square) – Minnesota lawmakers are raising concerns about reports that hundreds of millions of dollars are leaving Minnesota’s airport destined for foreign countries.
State Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove, is chair of the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee in the Minnesota legislature. During testimony this week, she addressed the issue, focusing especially on Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Robbins said this issue has been ongoing for decades with no real action taken by either the state or federal government to address it.
“The story of child care fraud back from the 2015 … period is when we first learned about suitcases of cash leaving the airport,” Robbins said.
Following a report in 2019 from the state’s legislative auditor that said those claims could not be substantiated, Robbins said many people, including herself, believed that issue had stopped.
“I was shocked in January 2026 to see a TSA bulletin saying it had tripled,” she said. “In 2024, $343 million left MSP in cash. In 2025, that number grew to $350 million … That was a shocking number, and that really galvanized the public on this issue.”