Federal investigators fanned out across the Twin Cities metro on Tuesday, executing search warrants at more than 20 locations in what officials called an ongoing fraud investigation, hitting sites that included an empty lot, a shuttered day care, and businesses that bill the state for autism services for minors.
No arrests have been announced. The warrants remain sealed. And the targets themselves say they have no idea what investigators were looking for.
But the scope of the operation, at least 22 court-authorized searches across Minneapolis, Shakopee, Fridley, and surrounding areas, signals a federal dragnet aimed squarely at suspected abuse of Minnesota's social-services funding pipeline. WCCO reported that it attempted to reach owners at every raided location and found a pattern of confusion, deflection, and silence.
The Justice Department confirmed the raids in a terse statement. "Today the FBI with federal, state and local law enforcement is involved in court-authorized law enforcement activity as part of an ongoing fraud investigation," a DOJ spokesperson said. Authorities also emphasized that the operation had nothing to do with immigration enforcement.
What the agents found, and what they didn't
Among the sites raided was the Quality Learning Center in Minneapolis, a day care that gained national attention after conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley featured it in a December video alleging fraud at multiple facilities. The landlord of the building, a woman who asked WCCO not to use her name and said she had no direct involvement in the day care, told reporters she was confused when federal agents arrived.
She had reason to be. The actual day care has been closed since January.
The landlord said she reviewed her security footage and determined investigators spent about two hours inside. A copy of the warrant agents left behind showed they claimed three items: a sign-in sheet, a security system monitor, and an invoice. She said they left with nothing of apparent importance.
Still, she described the toll of repeated visits, first from the YouTuber, then from federal agents:
"Every time they came here, either the [YouTuber] or them [federal investigators], they scaring, they scare everybody, the neighbor[s], everybody."
She also told WCCO that before the day care closed, she observed activity consistent with an operating business. "I see the kids was coming. The parking lot was full of cars," she said.
Another target, Aspen Associates LLC in Fridley, is one of five raided sites that use state dollars to provide services to people with autism under the age of 21. An employee who declined to identify himself told WCCO over the phone that he didn't know why they were targeted.
In Shakopee, federal agents visited the A Plus Universal Child Care and Learning Center, operated by former St. Paul City Councilor Kassim Busuri. Busuri directed WCCO to contact his attorney and offered no further comment.
Walz claims credit; FBI Director fires back
The political fallout arrived before the agents had finished their work. Gov. Tim Walz posted on X, framing the raids as a product of state vigilance. "Today's raids by state and federal law enforcement happened because our state agencies caught irregular behavior and reported it," Walz wrote. He added: "If you commit fraud in Minnesota you're going to get caught, and that's exactly what we saw today."
FBI Director Kash Patel was having none of it. He took to X to publicly rebuke the governor, making clear that the federal government, not the state, drove the operation:
"This FBI and DOJ with our DHS partners drafted and executed every search warrant today. But go ahead and take credit for our work while we smoke out the fraud plaguing Minnesota under your governorship."
That exchange laid bare a fundamental tension. Walz wants to position himself as a fraud fighter. Patel wants Minnesotans to know the fraud festered on Walz's watch.
The New York Post noted that Walz's public support for the raids sits uneasily alongside his earlier rhetoric. He had previously characterized similar fraud probes targeting Somali-run businesses as scapegoating or linked to "white supremacy." The pivot to tough-on-fraud messaging raises obvious questions about consistency.
A deeper pattern in Minnesota
Minnesota has become a recurring setting for federal fraud investigations. The state's generous social-services infrastructure, childcare subsidies, autism-services funding, pandemic-era relief programs, has attracted scrutiny for years. Newsmax reported that the raids are tied to broader scrutiny of fraud involving pandemic-era relief and social-service funds in the state.
State Rep. Kristin Robbins suggested the 22 raided businesses may represent only the "tip of the iceberg." She pointed to numerous childcare centers whose billing appears to exceed their licensed capacity, a red flag that, if accurate, would indicate systematic overbilling of taxpayer funds.
Minnesota Human Services Commissioner Shireen Gandhi issued a statement praising the federal action, calling it overdue accountability:
"This is an important action for families who rely on autism services and for Minnesota taxpayers fed up, as I am, with criminals taking advantage of the systems we have in place to deliver social services."
That statement raises its own question: if the state's own human services commissioner is "fed up" with fraud in programs her agency administers, what took so long?
The FBI and state DHS both declined to speak further with WCCO on Wednesday. Search warrants and other records remain sealed, leaving the public with a sprawling investigation but almost no official explanation of what the government believes happened.
Federal raids and the broader accountability gap
The Twin Cities operation fits a pattern of federal agents stepping in where state and local oversight has failed. In a separate case earlier this year, armed federal agents raided the homes of Democrat sisters in a probe of an alleged migrant shelter bribery scheme, another instance where public dollars flowed to private operators with insufficient scrutiny.
Five of the 22 raided sites billed the state for autism services to minors. Others operated as childcare centers. At least one, Quality Learning Center, had already closed months before the agents showed up. The picture that emerges is one of a system where taxpayer money kept flowing even after businesses stopped operating, where billing exceeded capacity, and where the state's own enforcement apparatus was either too slow or too disinterested to act.
Minnesota's political leadership has faced mounting pressure on multiple fronts. The state has been the site of violent unrest outside federal buildings and politically charged claims from state officials about federal law enforcement. Against that backdrop, Walz's attempt to claim credit for fraud raids that the FBI director says were entirely federally led looks less like leadership and more like positioning.
The FBI has been conducting high-profile raids across the country in recent months, signaling a renewed appetite for enforcement against financial fraud. The Minnesota operation stands out for its scale and for the political fight it immediately triggered.
What remains unanswered
The sealed warrants leave critical questions unresolved. What specific fraud schemes do investigators suspect? How much taxpayer money may have been diverted? Are charges forthcoming, or will this end as a sprawling search with no prosecutions?
The owners and operators WCCO contacted were either silent, confused, or lawyered up. The federal government isn't talking. The state government issued one carefully worded statement and then went quiet.
What is clear is the scale: more than 20 locations, multiple cities, childcare and autism-services providers billing the state for work that may not have been performed. And a governor who wants credit for catching the problem, after years of presiding over the system that allowed it to grow.
Taxpayers don't need a press release telling them who deserves the credit. They need to know where their money went, and why nobody in St. Paul noticed sooner.
