Somali Daycare Fraud: Feeding Our Future and Operation Metro Surge

The Minnesota Somali daycare fraud refers to a cluster of federal and state investigations into child care centers, pandemic meal sponsors, Medicaid providers, and housing programs in the Twin Cities, many of them operated by members of the Somali-American community, that prosecutors say have stolen hundreds of millions and possibly billions of taxpayer dollars. The cases have produced dozens of convictions, a federal freeze on Minnesota’s child care funding, the collapse of Governor Tim Walz’s reelection plans, and an immigration enforcement surge whose consequences have reached far beyond the fraud itself.

How the Child Care Fraud Worked

Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program, known as CCAP, reimburses licensed providers for caring for children from low-income families. Prosecutors allege that providers billed the state for children who were not actually enrolled, overstated attendance, submitted claims for days the facility was closed, and falsely certified that required family co-payments had been collected.¹

Individual prosecutions have accumulated over nearly a decade. In 2017, federal prosecutors charged Fozia Sheik Ali, operator of the Salama Child Care Center in Minneapolis, with wire fraud and theft of public money after she allegedly overstated attendance by more than 400 percent, including on days the facility was closed.²³⁴

Since January 2025, state officials have stopped payments to 636 providers based on credible allegations of fraud and have made more than 300 referrals to law enforcement.⁵ By late April 2026, 92 people had been charged in related fraud schemes in Minnesota since 2021, resulting in 67 convictions.⁶

The Feeding Our Future Meal Program Case

The largest and most prosecuted strand of the Minnesota fraud is Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit that sponsored participants in the federal child nutrition program. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture loosened oversight to keep meals flowing to children, participants in the scheme submitted inflated meal counts and fabricated rosters listing children who did not exist, collecting federal reimbursements that totaled more than $250 million.⁷

Close to 80 people have been charged in the case. As of May 2026, more than 60 had been convicted or had entered guilty pleas.⁷ Aimee Bock, the nonprofit’s former executive director and the person prosecutors called the scheme’s mastermind, was convicted at trial in March 2025 on charges of wire fraud, bribery, and conspiracy. On May 21, 2026, a federal judge sentenced her to 500 months — nearly 42 years — in prison and ordered roughly $243 million in restitution. The sentencing judge found she had an “integral role in planning the scheme,” acted as a gatekeeper for fraudulent sites, and committed perjury during her trial.⁸

Another defendant, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in November 2025 and ordered to pay nearly $48 million in restitution.⁹¹⁰¹¹

Only about $50 million of the stolen funds has been recovered.¹²

Why Oversight Failed

The fraud grew in part because of weaknesses in how Minnesota administered CCAP. A 2019 review by the Office of the Legislative Auditor found that the Department of Human Services did not require child care providers to submit attendance logs with their billing claims. The program relied on paper sign-in and sign-out sheets that prosecutors called “useless” and “comical.” In 2013, the state removed the phrase “I certify the following child care billed is correct” from billing forms, which prosecutors said made proving fraudulent intent significantly harder. State law also permitted providers to bill for up to 25 absent days per child per year and to submit bills for services up to a year after they were supposedly rendered.¹³

A federal audit released in May 2025 by the HHS Office of Inspector General confirmed that oversight had not substantially improved. Auditors reviewed 200 randomly selected CCAP payments from 2023 and found attendance-related errors in 38 of them. The agency estimated that 11 percent of all payments to more than 1,150 licensed child care centers contained errors, exceeding the federal 10 percent threshold. The state’s “limited oversight of attendance documentation” had directly resulted in overpayments and increased the risk of fraud. Auditors mandated that Minnesota recover the identified overpayments, strengthen monitoring, and move toward real-time electronic attendance reporting.¹⁴¹⁵

How the Fraud Spread Beyond Child Care

By 2025 and 2026, investigators had broadened their focus well beyond daycares and meals. In September 2025, eight defendants were charged with defrauding Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services program, a Medicaid-funded initiative to help people maintain housing. Prosecutors alleged the providers, operating companies including Brilliant Minds Services, Faladcare Inc., Leo Human Services, and Liberty Plus, submitted inflated or fabricated claims totaling millions of dollars for housing services never provided. According to prosecutors, they obtained beneficiary information from sources like addiction treatment centers and used the stolen funds for real estate investments, luxury vehicle leases, and personal expenses.¹⁶

In May 2026, the Department of Justice announced charges against 15 more defendants accused of stealing over $90 million across multiple Medicaid programs. Prosecutors described one scheme as the largest Medicaid autism fraud ever charged. Shamso Ahmed Hassan and Hanaan Mursal Yusuf were indicted for allegedly running a $46.6 million scheme through two autism centers, Smart Therapy Center and Star Autism Center, that paid kickbacks to parents to enroll their children, diagnosed children with autism regardless of medical necessity, and billed for services never rendered. About $21.2 million was actually paid out before the scheme was detected.¹⁷¹⁸

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson estimated in December 2025 that fraud across 14 “high-risk” Minnesota-run Medicaid programs could exceed $9 billion. Thompson noted that providers in those programs had billed a total of $18 billion since 2018, and asserted that “half or more” could be fraudulent. The state’s DHS Inspector General, James Clark, publicly disputed the figure as “speculation,” and Governor Walz, while acknowledging the fraud “could stretch into the billions,” rejected the $9 billion number as well.¹⁹

The Nick Shirley Video

On December 26, 2025, a 23-year-old YouTuber named Nick Shirley posted a 41-minute video that transformed a largely obscure set of investigations into a national political crisis. Shirley visited roughly ten child care centers in Minneapolis, mostly Somali-run, and claimed to document around $100 million in fraud. He posed as a parent seeking enrollment and filmed centers that appeared inactive or unstaffed. The video accumulated more than 100 million views across platforms and drew public praise from Elon Musk, Vice President J.D. Vance, and FBI Director Kash Patel.²⁰

The video’s provenance became disputed. Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth confirmed that her Republican caucus had worked with Shirley, providing information from House Republican staff to help him identify facilities to visit. Shirley denied the collaboration, calling it “completely false.” The Intercept identified Shirley’s on-camera investigative partner as David Hoch, described as a political operative with connections to the Minnesota state House.²¹²⁰

In the days after the video’s release, the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families conducted compliance visits to nine of the centers it featured. Inspectors found children present and normal operations at eight; the ninth had not yet opened for the day when inspectors arrived. Some centers had prior licensing violations related to cleanliness or supervision, but none were cited for fraud during these visits. One center, Quality Learning Center, voluntarily closed its license on January 6, 2026. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported finding no evidence of fraud at the specific locations Shirley visited.²²¹

Federal Funding Freeze and Walz’s Exit

Within days of the viral video, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services froze all federal child care payments to Minnesota, approximately $185 million per year, and eventually suspended $7.3 billion in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funding to Minnesota and four other states. HHS demanded that Minnesota provide Social Security numbers for the roughly 23,000 children receiving CCAP subsidies and told the state to prove payments were being spent legitimately before funds would be released.²³¹

Legitimate providers warned that losing CCAP payments, which constitute roughly 75 percent of revenue for centers serving low-income families, could force them to close within a month. Attorney General Keith Ellison described the freeze as a “hasty, scorched earth attack.”²⁴

On January 5, 2026, Governor Tim Walz dropped his bid for a third term, saying “the buck stops with me” while criticizing the federal government’s approach. He had unveiled a fraud prevention program in December 2025, appointed a new director of program integrity, and requested $7.24 million in additional state funding for fraud detection. Walz accused President Trump of “politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.”²⁵ Senator Chuck Grassley and the entire Senate Republican Conference sent a letter to Walz on January 8 demanding accountability for what they called “negligent management of federal funds,” and the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Republican James Comer, opened a separate investigation.²⁶

On April 28, 2026, federal agents executed 22 search warrants across the Minneapolis area, targeting daycares, businesses, and homes in a multi-agency operation involving the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, the state Medicaid fraud control unit, and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. No arrests were made during the raids, but agents seized files and computer equipment.²⁷

Operation Metro Surge and the Prosecutor Resignations

The fraud scandal became tangled with Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement campaign that deployed thousands of federal agents from ICE and Customs and Border Protection to the Twin Cities beginning in December 2025. The Trump administration cited the fraud allegations as part of the justification for the operation, but its focus was primarily immigration enforcement, and the vast majority of those detained had no connection to daycare or social services fraud.⁶

The operation resulted in over 3,000 arrests over roughly three months, sweeping up U.S. citizens, refugees, green card holders, asylum applicants, and undocumented immigrants. A Human Rights Watch report found that nearly two out of three immigrants arrested had no prior U.S. criminal history.²⁸ The City of Minneapolis estimated the operation’s economic and community impact at $203.1 million over one month, including $47 million in lost wages and $81 million in lost small business revenue.²⁹

On January 7, 2026, ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother, while she sat in her parked car. The Trump administration said Good had “viciously” run over an officer, but video showed a gap between her car and the agent when shots were fired. On January 24, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who was filming CBP agents, was pepper-sprayed, pinned to the ground, had his holstered firearm removed, and was shot multiple times by agents while restrained and facing the ground. His death was ruled a homicide. Minnesota filed a lawsuit in March 2026 to compel the federal government to release evidence related to the shootings. The DOJ opened a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death but declined to do so for Good’s. In a third incident, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis was shot and wounded by a federal agent; prosecutors later dropped all charges against him and opened an investigation into whether the involved immigration officers had provided false testimony.³⁰³¹

The killings fractured the federal government’s own fraud-fighting apparatus. In January 2026, six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned, including Joseph H. Thompson, the senior assistant U.S. attorney who had been overseeing the fraud investigations and who had publicly estimated the $9 billion figure just weeks earlier. Reports indicated Thompson resigned after senior DOJ officials pressed for a criminal investigation into Renee Good’s widow and refused to allow state officials to participate in investigating whether the shooting was lawful. Other departing prosecutors included Harry Jacobs, chief of the white-collar criminal office, and Melinda Williams, who led the criminal division.³²³³ Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the loss of Thompson dealt a “major blow to efforts to root out rampant theft from state agencies.”³⁴

Impact on the Somali-American Community

Minnesota’s Somali-American community numbers over 100,000 residents and is concentrated in the Twin Cities. Ahmed Samatar, a Somali professor at Macalester College, told PBS that the investigations and the surrounding rhetoric created a “frightening” environment in which young Somali-Americans who see themselves as “normal citizens” feel targeted as “an unwanted foreign group.”³⁵

After the Shirley video went viral, Somali-owned child care centers reported vandalism, break-ins, and threatening voicemails. At one Minneapolis center, suspects broke in overnight and stole enrollment, employee, and financial documents. Some families kept their children home out of fear. Provider Mary Solheim argued that applying blanket suspicion to Somali-run centers while not scrutinizing centers serving white children was “racist.” Jaylani Hussein of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the Somali community is “overwhelmingly made up of hardworking families, small business owners, healthcare workers, students, and taxpayers.”²⁴³⁶ During a December 2025 cabinet meeting, President Trump described Somalia as “garbage” and said it “stinks,” according to CNN reporting.²⁷ Walz denounced Trump’s remarks as “vile, racist lies and slander towards our fellow Minnesotans.”²⁵

Among the most inflammatory claims surrounding the scandal is that fraud proceeds were funneled overseas to fund al-Shabaab, the Somali militant group. Federal investigators and former counterterrorism officials have said they believe some of the stolen money was transferred to Somalia using hawalas, informal cash-transfer networks, and that al-Shabaab “routinely took a share” of funds arriving in Somalia regardless of the sender’s intent.³⁷ No federal charges of material support for terrorism or terrorism financing have been filed in any of the Minnesota social services fraud cases. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has charged defendants with wire fraud, health care fraud, and theft of public money, not terrorism-related offenses. The 2019 Legislative Auditor’s report was similarly “unable to substantiate” the allegation that CCAP money funded terrorism. The total amount of money that may have reached al-Shabaab remains unknown.³⁸

What Is Changing Now

Minnesota created the Department of Children, Youth and Families to consolidate licensing and auditing, and a 2025 state law criminalized kickbacks for child care program enrollment referrals. On May 17, 2026, the Minnesota House unanimously passed a bill expanding the state’s power to withhold payments to child care providers over suspected fraud. The department has also sought authority to immediately suspend a provider’s license if an owner is criminally charged with fraud, and to improve investigative data-sharing across state agencies.³⁹

At the federal level, the Department of Justice expanded its Health Care Fraud Strike Force, previously limited to Detroit and Chicago, to include the District of Minnesota, and created a new national Medicaid strike force with 15 additional trial attorneys. Federal funding for Minnesota’s social service programs is being deferred rather than permanently cut, with state officials instructed to revalidate their providers before payments resume.¹⁷ State officials have said they “fully expect to see more charges.”⁵

1
MinnPost. Here’s What’s Really Happening With Child Care Fraud in Minnesota, Explained
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Department of Justice. Twin Cities Child Care Provider Charged With Stealing Hundreds of Thousands From Low-Income Assistance Program
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KARE 11. Feeding Our Future Defendant Now Charged With Child Care Fraud
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FOX 9. Minneapolis Day Care Owner Featured in Nick Shirley Video Charged
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Minnesota Reformer. Feds Announce 15 Indictments in Unprecedented Medicaid Fraud Scheme
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CBS News. Minneapolis Daycare Fraud Federal Raids Timeline
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Axios. Aimee Bock Feeding Our Future Fraud Jail Time
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CBS News. Feeding Our Future Fraud Ringleader Aimee Bock Sentenced
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IRS. Feeding Our Future Defendant Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison
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MPR News. Feeding Our Future Defendant Pleads Guilty to Jury Bribery Attempt
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Minnesota Reformer. Shakopee Man Pleads Guilty to Bribing Juror in Feeding Our Future Trial
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CNN. Minnesota Social Service Programs Fraud Charges
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Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor. Special Review: Child Care Assistance Program
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HHS Office of Inspector General. Minnesota Could Better Ensure That Childcare Assistance Providers Comply With Attendance Requirements
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FOX 9. Federal Audit Oversight Flaws MN Child Care Payments
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Department of Justice. Defendants Charged in First Wave of Housing Stabilization Fraud Cases
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Department of Justice. Minnesota Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in Charges Against 15 Defendants
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Department of Justice. Minnesota HCF Case Summaries
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Minnesota Reformer. U.S. Attorney: Fraud Likely Exceeds $9 Billion in Minnesota-Run Medicaid Services
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The New Yorker. What a Viral YouTube Video Says About the Future of Journalism
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FOX 9. Minnesota GOP Worked With YouTuber Investigation Child Care Fraud
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CBS News. Minneapolis Day Care Quality Learning Center Closed After Nick Shirley Video
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CNN. Minnesota Child Care Centers Fraud Investigation
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MPR News. Somali Child Care Providers Report Vandalism, Threats After Viral Video
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CBS News. Minnesota Fraud Schemes: What We Know
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Sen. Chuck Grassley. Grassley Colleagues Press Minnesota Governor Walz Over Rampant Child Care Fraud
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CNN. Minnesota Fraud Investigation
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Human Rights Watch. A Manufactured Crisis: Minnesota Communities Terrorized by the Federal Government
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City of Minneapolis. City Federal Response
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House Oversight Democrats. Minnesota Oversight Report
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PBS NewsHour. Minnesota Sues to Obtain Evidence in Shootings by Federal Officers During ICE Surge
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New York Times. Minnesota Federal Prosecutors Resign After DOJ Push to Investigate Renee Good’s Widow
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Sahan Journal. Minnesota U.S. Attorney Office Resignations ICE Fatal Shooting
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VPM. Minnesota Federal Prosecutors Resign After DOJ Push to Investigate Renee Good’s Widow
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PBS NewsHour. Federal Agents Probe Fraud Allegations Targeting Somali Child Care Providers in Minnesota
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CNN. Minnesota Day Care Fraud: What We Know
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KATV. Federal Investigators Warn Minnesota Welfare Fraud May Have Helped Fund Al-Shabaab
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Pioneer Press. Remember That Allegation of $100 Mil in Child Care Fraud for Terrorists? Here’s a Fresh Update
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Minnesota House of Representatives. House Passes Bill Expanding Fraud Prevention Powers