Federal agents raid 22 Minneapolis businesses in sweeping fraud probe
Federal agents are currently raiding 22 businesses in Minneapolis, Minnesota as part of a major federal fraud investigation. Brooke Taylor reports live that the raids are linked to a viral YouTube video by Nick Shirley, who exposed alleged child care funding fraud in December. The Trump administration previously froze child care funding and called for a full overhaul of certain day care facilities.
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Former Minnesota Vikings captain and Minnesota Golden Gophers football star Jack Brewer has witnessed an arc of crime and punishment involving his state’s Somali community.
After previously telling Pakinomist Digital that he saw alleged Somali fraudsters buying luxury sports cars during his playing career with the Vikings, Brewer saw the FBI conduct raids on the alleged Somali fraudsters at the center of a year-long Minnesota welfare fraud scheme.
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Jack Brewer stands with law enforcement in Minneapolis. (Pakinomist, Getty Images)
“Americans should be celebrating today. We finally have an FBI that is actually standing up for the poor in this country and stopping this corruption that is happening in Minneapolis and the surrounding areas where they are robbing, literally robbing, the orphan, the widow and those in poverty,” Brewer told Pakinomist Digital later Tuesday.
“Thank God Kash Patel and the federal government are stepping in because they are the only ones who will even try to police this place. Minnesota will not police itself.”
Federal authorities raided more than 20 locations, including childcare facilities, in Minneapolis on Tuesday as part of a comprehensive investigation of fraud into largely Somali-owned businesses, sources confirmed to Pakinomist.
Authorities executed 22 federal search warrants in Minnesota Tuesday morning as part of the operation, which is not immigration related.
The raids center on federal fraud investigations into largely Somali-owned businesses, including child care facilities that registered their day care with the state but allegedly billed for care that was not provided.
“They prey on vulnerable people,” Brewer said of the alleged scammers.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MINNESOTA’S ‘FEEDING OUR FUTURE’ SCAM AT THE CENTER OF TRUMP’S LATEST CRACK
Jack Brewer, former Minnesota Vikings safety, speaks during a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 27, 2021. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., speaks at a news conference at City Hall after a mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minn., on Aug. 20258. (Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg; Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
“I believe they get into these networks and pass it on between each other – how to steal from the US government and how to take advantage of the very people these programs were created to help. Those people are nasty. They rob the people who need help the most and make suffering their own personal business model.”
Brewer was a standout special teams player and team captain for the Minnesota Vikings. Signed as a free agent, he played in 15 games in 2002, leading the team in special teams tackles and securing his first career interception against Green Bay. He was named team captain in 2003.
Prior to that, he was a standout safety and team captain at the University of Minnesota after transferring from SMU, earning First Team All-Big Ten honors and leading defensive backs in tackles in 2001.
“Minnesota is one of the most fatherless places in America, especially because 28% of their households are single-family households, the vast majority of which are single mothers. Minnesota is literally vulnerable to these schemes from all these people who have figured out how to rig the system and they’ve created industries of corruption,” added Brewer.
“A lot of liberal cities, but especially Minneapolis, have become completely lawless. They won’t police themselves in any way – at the state level, local level or city level. All they do is let people get away with crime after crime after crime, whether it’s violent crime or white-collar crime… What can you do to actually go to jail in Minnesota? and it becomes a free-for-all.
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Minnesota has been under the spotlight for years for Medicaid fraud, including a massive $300 million pandemic fraud case involving the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. It drew renewed national attention in 2025 as convictions piled up and the state became a flashpoint in Trump’s administration broader “war on fraud”.
In 2022, under former President Joe Biden’s administration, 47 people were charged. As of December, 57 people have been sentenced, either because they pleaded guilty or lost at trial. Most of the defendants are of Somali descent.
