A Minnesota state commissioner announced on Monday that past investigations of several child care centers at the focus of a viral video on fraudulent day cares have not produced any findings of fraud.
A renewed spotlight shone on the fraud scandal hitting Minnesota this weekend as independent reporter Nick Shirley released a video exposing several Somali-run day care centers that seemingly supported no actual children, but kept receiving government checks. The video went viral, with many politicians, including Vice President JD Vance, re-sharing clips from the 45-minute documentary.
Commissioner Tikki Brown of the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families responded to the video in a press call on Monday, stating that her office is revisiting each of the centers to investigate the fraud uncovered in the video.
“While we have questions about some of the methods that were used in the video, we do take the concerns that the video raises about fraud very seriously. Each of the facilities mentioned in the video has been visited at least once in the last six months as part of our typical licensing process, and in fact, our staff are out in the community today to visit each of these sites again so that we can look into the concerns that were raised in the video,” Brown said.
Brown said her office had previously visited each of the centers unannounced and that several of them had been previously under investigation, although the department did not find evidence of fraud. She emphasized that her office is “committed to working today to gather information and to assess and analyze additional information for those centers that were identified.”
“There have been ongoing investigations with several of those centers. None of those investigations uncovered findings of fraud,” Brown said. “I will say, you know, regardless of past findings, our team is just committed to making sure that we address any of the concerns that currently have appeared with the video.”
Fox 9 previously uncovered a video of parents leaving with their children moments after dropping them off at an allegedly fraudulent Minnesota day care.
The outlet’s investigations have found that across a number of cases dating back to at least 2013, alleged fraudsters used a range of methods centered on inflating or fabricating services to siphon public funds.
These methods include billing the state for children who did not exist or were not present; falsifying attendance records and inventing names; enrolling employees’ own children to boost reimbursement; over-billing for childcare while providing few, if any, services; submitting claims while physically absent or even out of the country; using shell businesses, such as family-run catering companies, to capture additional public funds; charging for meals or services that were never delivered; and exploiting emergency government programs with weak oversight.
The fraud findings have sparked outrage from Minnesota Republicans and Trump administration officials who have railed against Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) for not taking greater action to root out the fraud.
WALZ ALLIES LED STATE AGENCIES THAT OVERSAW MASSIVE ALLEGED SOMALI DAYCARE FRAUD
FBI Director Kash Patel announced a surge of investigative resources and agents to Minnesota, while Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler paused all of her agency’s grants to the state in light of the viral video.
“Even before the public conversation escalated online, the FBI had surged personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota to dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs. Fraud that steals from taxpayers and robs vulnerable children will remain a top FBI priority in Minnesota and nationwide,” Patel wrote on X.
