The daycare fraud scandal exploding across Minnesota did not come out of nowhere. It did not suddenly appear during COVID. It has been festering for at least a decade, and resurfaced footage from 2015 proves that state authorities were warned long ago and chose to do far too little.
Video filmed in March 2015 in Hennepin County shows what prosecutors later described as a staged routine. Parents briefly escorted children into supposed daycare centers, turned around, and left minutes later. The purpose was not childcare. It was paperwork. The drop offs were allegedly designed to trigger taxpayer funded reimbursements, with providers billing the state for services that were never delivered.
When the case was finally prosecuted, county investigators concluded that several centers billed the government even on days when parents did not bother to fake the routine at all. According to Fox reporting, some locations even distributed kickbacks tied to the fraud. At least four daycare centers were implicated, with authorities estimating roughly $1 million was stolen. Four individuals were arrested. Two defendants, Abdirizak Ahmed Gayre and Ibrahim Awgab Osman, pleaded guilty to felony theft by swindling. Other charges were quietly dropped.
Then Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman summed it up with a line that aged poorly. “If you’re going to cheat, cheat little,” he said, suggesting the real mistake was getting greedy enough to be noticed. That mindset explains a lot about why Minnesota became fertile ground for massive fraud.
Fast forward to today, and the numbers have exploded. The Feeding Our Future scandal alone involved more than $250 million in stolen federal funds. At least 78 people, most of them Somali, have been charged for running fake meal sites and laundering money into luxury homes, cars, jewelry, and overseas property. Now daycare fraud is back in the spotlight, and it looks eerily familiar.
FBI Director Kash Patel recently announced a renewed crackdown, calling the latest revelations “the tip of a very large iceberg.” His comments followed viral footage from journalist Nick Shirley showing an apparently empty daycare with a misspelled sign reading “Quality Learing Center,” despite reports it received millions in public funds. Locals said they never saw children there. Ever.
Patel confirmed the FBI has surged personnel into Minnesota and is actively following the money. He cited the Feeding Our Future takedown, which led to 78 indictments, 57 convictions, and prison sentences, including a failed attempt to bribe a juror with $120,000 in cash. Referrals for denaturalization and deportation are now underway where applicable.
President Trump blasted Governor Tim Walz for allowing Minnesota to become a hub of fraudulent money laundering. Vice President JD Vance called it a microcosm of immigration related fraud nationwide. Walz’s office insists reforms are happening.
But the 2015 footage raises a brutal question. If they knew then, why did it take a decade and hundreds of millions in losses for anyone to take this seriously. And how many more scams are still hiding in plain sight.
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