IT’S the US Midwest state famed for being “nice”.
However, what is unfolding in Minnesota now is anything but — and it is turning into a story all too familiar to British people.
While we had the Pakistani grooming gangs ignored by cops and social services too afraid of being branded racist, the “land of a thousand lakes” is facing a multi-million-dollar education fraud by Somalians.
And there are whispers it was ignored for the same reason that UK authorities failed to act on the grooming gangs.
Minnesota is home to the largest Somali population in the US, with an estimated 120,000 living there.
One of its largest cities, Minneapolis, was considered by the Justice Department as a “Sanctuary City”, where local cops and other officials are not supposed to ask residents their immigration status so no one fears deportation and will report crimes properly.
But in January, it was the focus of the brutal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “Metro Surge” operation — with more than 3,700 immigrants arrested and Trump vowing to “take back” Minnesota.
And the president has now doubled down on the state, after a YouTuber revealed systematic theft across fake childcare centres, fake hospices and a 3,000 PER CENT rise in autism funding — all led by Somalian groups.
It comes after acting US Attorney Joseph Thompson said that when his current investigations are finished, fraud in programmes administered by Minnesota could exceed $1BILLION.
YouTuber Nick Shirley shot to fame earlier this year after a viral video showing him outside a hilariously misspelled Quality “Learing” Center.
The softly-spoken and floppy-haired 23-year-old took viewers on a 42-minute tour of empty daycare sites that received government funding.
Incredibly, one woman involved even planned to “flee to the UK” in the wake of the expose, he claims.
Now a minor online celebrity needing a 24/7 bodyguard, Nick told me this week: “So much money was going towards these daycare centres . . . then we go there on a weekday and there’s no children there.
“The signs say they are open — they’re supposed to be open. We went to one — it said open 7am to 10pm. We’re there at 11am and no one’s there.”
Weeks later, the Quality “Learing” facility shut up shop, but not before pocketing nearly $2million in taxpayer funding.
Shirley’s report has helped propel the issue of benefit fraud to the top of the Trump administration’s domestic agenda, and arrests are mounting.
On Thursday, a probe led by the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud saw three nurses, a chiropractor and a psychologist arrested in California over allegations of a $50million sham hospice scheme.
Raids are taking place across the country, where Shirley says: “100 per cent people have said, ‘Enough is enough’.”
It’s a story we in the UK know only too well.
Last year in England, investigators revealed that thousands of students were recruited — often with no intent to study — to claim millions in Government-backed maintenance loans and tuition fees.
In 2009, a Home Office investigation was launched after our sister paper, The Times, revealed hundreds of men from Pakistan’s North West Frontier had paid at least £1,000 to a gang to be admitted into bogus colleges.
And the Rotherham grooming gangs are a perfect example of where authorities failed to investigate — because they were worried they would be seen as “racist”.
Ironically, Shirley tells me Britain inspired his initial investigations — about immigration and the rise of Islam.
He said when he visited the UK last summer, it was “completely different” to how he had envisioned it.
He added: “Then I realised, ‘If this is happening here, it’s probably happening in the United States’. So I started looking into the rise of Islam inside the US. That led me to Minneapolis, Minnesota.”
But what he found there would generate very different headlines.
Shirley tells me locals had “always heard about the allegations” of fraud bubbling under the surface for years in Minnesota, “but nobody had actually gone to show people what it’s like”.
He continued: “And the fraudsters had been getting away with it for so long that they thought they could continue to loot our system.”
Speaking on Harry Cole Saves The West, he explained: “So I went and did a video on Christian churches converted to mosques in Minnesota.
“And while I was there, the locals of Minnesota said, ‘Nick, you’re here to do a video on the fraud?’. I said, ‘Well, what fraud is taking place?’. A lady told me for hours upon hours about what was taking place.”
Shirley even claimed that after his video expose of daycare centre fraud, “one lady tried to flee to your country, the beautiful country of the United Kingdom”.
This was not the first time fraud had been linked to the Somalian community in the state.
The so-called Feeding Our Future programme to get food to needy kids was alleged to have siphoned off $250million during the Covid pandemic.
The group claimed to have served 90million meals in less than two years — more than 120,000 meals per day across 300 sites in Minnesota.
One Feeding Our Future site claimed to have dished up 6,000 meals in a single day, but FBI watchers saw barely 40.
A federal probe concluded that just three per cent of the assigned funding was spent on food.
Last August, ringleader Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 36, was jailed for 28 years after a court heard he personally pocketed more than $8million during his 18-month involvement in the fraud.
He bought five luxury vehicles in six months, including a Porsche, a Tesla and a GMC truck, and properties in the US, Kenya and Nairobi.
Other high-profile convictions included Mohamed Jama Ismail, 52, jailed for 12 years, while Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, 24, got ten years’ jail.
Each of the three was also ordered to repay nearly $50million.
Just as with the UK grooming gangs, officials claimed political correctness slowed things down.
They feared being called racist for investigating the fraud and halting funds even after obvious failings were found.
Feeding Our Future had even attempted to sue the state, in late 2020, for racial discrimination.
While the Feeding Our Future scandal has led to more than 90 arrests and 60-plus convictions, many people believe it was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fraud in the state.
Eyebrows were also raised by a 700 PER CENT increase in services for autistic kids.
In 2018, there were just 41 providers in Minnesota — costing taxpayers $6million. But that soared to 328, and nearly $192million, last year.
Then there were the swirling rumours about the number of child daycare centres — again many run in the Somali community — that appeared to be providing services for ghost kids.
Enter Nick Shirley, who has the support of fellow US influencer Jake Lang.
Shirley’s video report from Minnesota was pushed online by Vice President JD Vance, half of Trump’s cabinet and X owner Elon Musk.
Meetings with the president and US Treasury followed, kick-starting a massive push on fraud not just in Minnesota, but across America.
Giving evidence to Congress, Shirley said: “I made this video to document the widespread fraud that has been taking place. People like me, my generation, are sick of seeing tax dollars go toward fraud.”
And the response has been remarkable.
“Just from my videos, they have created new groups inside the government,” Shirley tell me.
“We have a new fraud task force that will be tackling the fraud.
“Now, you’re seeing that we are not going to put up with it.”
Shirley says Donald Trump’s unique style — flying in the face of claims of racism — can fix it.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/16178024/somalian-fraud-minnesota-youtuber-exposed-cops-ignored/