FBI surged resources to Minnesota over daycare fraud claims before video went viral, Patel says

The FBI went into overdrive to investigate suspected fraud involving more than a dozen Minnesota social services, according to FBI Director Kash Patel, who posted a statement on X after a YouTube video purporting to show daycare facilities that aren’t operational but received state and federal funding went viral over the weekend. Patel said in a post on X that he was aware of the video, created by 23-year-old right-wing influencer Nick Shirley, but insisted the agency had already “surged” investigative resources and personnel to Minnesota as part of its ongoing fraud investigation that has largely targeted Somali immigrants. “The FBI believes this is just the tip of a very large iceberg,” Patel posted Sunday on X. Meanwhile, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s office defended its ongoing efforts to crack down on fraud when asked about the video. “The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action,” a spokesperson for the governor’s office said in an email. “He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed.” The Justice Department has been running a sprawling fraud investigation involving some members of Minnesota’s Somali community for years. In 2022, during the Biden administration, federal prosecutors announced initial indictments in what they called a $250 million scheme to defraud a federally funded child nutrition program. As of last month, prosecutors had charged 77 people. They described Aimee Bock, who is white, as the mastermind of the operation. She was convicted by a jury in March of this year. Shirley, a self-described independent journalist, put the subject of Minnesota fraud in the spotlight of conservative media in recent days. His report out of Minneapolis was quickly championed by Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk and various right-wing outlets, posted his video on X and YouTube, where it’s been viewed millions of times. “Here is the full 42 minutes of my crew and I exposing Minnesota fraud, this might be my most important work yet,” Shirley claimed online. “We uncovered over $110,000,000 in ONE day.” Among other things, the video features Shirley in front of what appears to be an inactive childcare center in Minneapolis with a sign that reads “Quality Learing Center,” including an apparent misspelling of “learning.” Shirley contends it received $1.9 million dollars “from the government” this year. “This is open and blatant fraud taking place here,” Shirley insists, calling it “just one of the hundreds of child daycare centers here inside of Minneapolis being ran (cq) by the Somali population.” Shirley did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News. But he is no stranger to right-wing media and did a live interview with a protester at the Jan. 6 riot — who was later sentenced to prison before being pardoned by President Donald Trump — that he posted on YouTube. His YouTube channel says it has 1.2 million followers, and he regularly posts political content there including person-on-the-street interviews from numerous locations. In October, he was a guest at a White House conference on antifa, a decentralized set of extreme left-wing groups. There was no answer when an NBC News reporter called the childcare center Monday. But a Child Learning Center at that same address in Minneapolis is licensed with the state to care for 99 children. The facility has been fined twice by the state since 2022 for allegedly not performing a required background check, and had several violations listed from its most recent licensing visit in June. The state Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Shirley’s claim that this facility received $1.9 million in government funding in 2025. Walz’s office, in response to an email from NBC News, said the Quality Learning Center has been shuttered and the state DHS has “already referred these providers to law enforcement, and law enforcement has already conducted raids.” Walz’s office did not say when the daycare facility was closed. Shirley, accompanied by a researcher he identifies only as Dave, visited several other daycare sites where they peppered apparent Somali immigrants at the facilities with questions and talked to people who said they lived in the area who insist they have never seen any children at any of the locations. The Trump administration seized on the fraud scandal earlier this month as it embarked on a crackdown on illegal immigration in Minnesota, which is home to about 80,000 people of Somali descent. Trump delivered several derogatory rants against Somali immigrants following news reports that dozens of people of Somali descent had been convicted in fraud schemes related to Covid relief that netted over $1 billion. “I don’t want them in our country,” Trump said. “I’ll be honest with you, OK. Somebody will say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason.” Walz blasted Trump for “demonizing” Somali immigrants. “If you commit crimes, you go to jail,” Walz said at a December event. “Doesn’t matter what your race is, what your ethnicity, religion — but demonizing an entire group of people by their race and their ethnicity, a very group of people who contribute to the vitality — economic, cultural — of this state, is something I was hoping we’d never have to see.” Members of the Trump administration have also called for the resignation of Walz, a Democrat who was former Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate in last year’s presidential election, for allegedly failing to stem the corruption. But Walz was the governor in 2022 when the DOJ first began charging people in Minnesota with exploiting a federally funded nutrition program for children during the pandemic. “This was a brazen scheme of staggering proportions,” then U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger for the District of Minnesota said when the first federal charges were announced.