22 Warrants, $9 Billion in Questions: Inside Minnesota's Expanding Federal Fraud Dragnet

On the morning of April 28, 2026, FBI agents and officers from the Department of Homeland Security arrived at more than 20 locations across Minneapolis and the Twin Cities, battering rams in hand. By midday, 22 federal search warrants had been executed at childcare centers, autism therapy providers, healthcare agencies, and private residences [1][2]. Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and the state's Medicaid fraud control unit were there too, pulling boxes of records alongside their federal counterparts [3].

No arrests were announced. No charges were filed. But the raids sent an unmistakable signal: the federal government's investigation into social-welfare fraud in Minnesota — already the largest of its kind in American history — is far from over.

What Was Raided and Why

The 22 search warrants targeted a mix of childcare facilities, autism centers, and healthcare businesses across the Minneapolis metro area [1]. At least two of the raided centers — Mako Childcare Center and Quality Learning Center — had appeared in a viral video by conservative influencer Nick Shirley, whose 42-minute exposé in December 2025 alleged that Somali-owned daycares were collecting federal subsidies without serving children [4]. That video, viewed over 100 million times on X, was amplified by Elon Musk, Vice President J.D. Vance, and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi [5].

Five of the warrants targeted businesses connected to Minnesota's Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program, a state Medicaid program designed to serve children with autism spectrum disorder [3]. The state's Department of Human Services said it had flagged "irregular behavior" in these providers and shared that information with federal investigators [6].

The specific fraud allegations span multiple program areas. Federal prosecutors have previously estimated that half or more of the $18 billion paid out through 14 Minnesota Medicaid programs since 2018 may have been fraudulent — a staggering potential total exceeding $9 billion [7]. Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson described the situation as "industrial scale fraud" that is "swamping Minnesota and calling into question everything we know about our state" [8].

Source: DOJ, House Oversight Committee, CBS News

Data as of Apr 28, 2026CSV

The Feeding Our Future Shadow

The April raids cannot be understood without the precedent of Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit that became the centerpiece of what the Department of Justice called the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme in U.S. history. Founded in 2016, the organization claimed to distribute meals to children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal prosecutors allege it instead became a vehicle for stealing approximately $250 million in federal nutrition program funds [9].

The FBI raided Feeding Our Future locations in January 2022, and 79 individuals were ultimately indicted. By early 2026, 56 had pleaded guilty and seven more were convicted at trial, including the organization's leader, Aimee Bock [10]. The vast majority of defendants are of Somali descent [11].

The Feeding Our Future case opened the door to broader scrutiny. Beyond the nutrition program, federal investigators began examining childcare subsidies, Medicaid-funded autism services, housing assistance programs, and other social services — all areas where prosecutors say they have identified patterns of fraudulent billing [12].

Source: U.S. DOJ, District of Minnesota

Data as of Apr 28, 2026CSV

State-Federal Cooperation — and Its Critics

Governor Tim Walz framed the April 28 raids as proof that cooperation works. "We catch criminals when state and federal agencies share information. Joint investigations work, and securing justice depends on it," he said in a statement [6]. The state's child welfare agency said it had shared key information with law enforcement, and the BCA confirmed it partnered directly with the FBI on executing the warrants [3].

But the cooperation narrative was immediately contested. FBI Director Kash Patel and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin both pushed back on Walz's characterization, with Mullin writing on X: "You have zero credibility on this issue" [13]. The Trump administration has maintained that the fraud investigation is a federal initiative that succeeded despite, not because of, Minnesota's state government.

The House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman James Comer, has held multiple hearings on Minnesota fraud since 2025. The committee's interim staff report, "The Cost of Doing Nothing," alleged that Governor Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison "were aware for years of widespread fraud, deliberately misled the American people about their knowledge of the fraud, and repeatedly failed to take meaningful action" [14]. The committee said it had spoken with more than 30 whistleblowers who raised concerns to state leaders about fraud and money laundering [14].

House Republican Leader Harry Niska echoed that framing: "For years, House Republicans warned that Minnesota's Democrat leaders were failing to provide the basic oversight needed to stop fraud. After repeated red flags, whistleblower warnings, and explosive growth in program spending, Gov. Walz and AG Ellison had every chance to step in and fix this. They didn't" [13].

Walz, for his part, announced in January 2026 that he was dropping his reelection campaign amid the mounting scandal [15].

The Ethnic Dimension

An attorney representing several of the raided childcare centers told NBC News that the targeted businesses "appear to be operated by Somali immigrants" [2]. The focus on Somali-owned businesses is not new. The Feeding Our Future prosecution overwhelmingly involved Somali-American defendants, and the fraud allegations have been intertwined with anti-immigrant rhetoric from the start.

President Trump has repeatedly used the Minnesota fraud scandal to target the state's Somali-American community, calling Somali immigrants "garbage" and saying he wanted them sent "back to where they came from" [16]. In January 2026, the administration launched Operation Metro Surge, deploying up to 2,000 federal agents to the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area in what DHS called "the largest immigration operation ever carried out" [17].

The results of that operation complicated the administration's stated rationale. Although Operation Metro Surge was presented as targeting fraud-connected individuals, fewer than 3% of the roughly 3,000 people arrested were from Somalia, and none had documented ties to the social services fraud under investigation [17]. Persons detained included restaurant workers, airport employees, Target staff, students, and at least one group of Native Americans [17]. The operation also produced tragedy: ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renée Nicole Macklin Good, a 37-year-old American woman, in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026 [17].

A U.S. District Court judge found that ICE had violated at least 96 court orders in Minnesota since January 1, 2026 [17]. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, along with the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, sued to halt the operation [18].

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has argued that the fraud investigation — however legitimate in its origins — has been used as a pretext for broader targeting of the Somali community. Local business owners have reported surges in harassment and threats following Shirley's viral video and the subsequent political attention [5].

The director of Child Care Aware of Minnesota offered a more measured view: "The majority are in business to do good business. You're going to come across individuals who try to capitalize on systems" [16].

Due Process and the Question of Proof

The April 28 raids were executed under court-authorized search warrants, meaning a federal judge reviewed evidence and found probable cause to believe the targeted locations contained evidence of criminal activity [1]. This is a higher legal threshold than a simple administrative inquiry.

But search warrants are not indictments, and the execution of a warrant does not mean the target has committed a crime. No arrests were made during the April 28 operation, and federal agencies did not announce any new charges [1]. For business owners who were raided but not ultimately charged, the consequences can still be severe: disrupted operations, reputational damage, frozen accounts, and lost clients.

Minnesota's civil asset forfeiture laws add another layer of concern. The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm, has given Minnesota a "D" grade for its forfeiture laws [19]. Under state law, property can be forfeited based on the conviction of "a person" — not necessarily the owner — and only for property worth less than $50,000, and only when the owner files a claim [19]. In more than 80% of Minnesota forfeiture cases, property owners do not challenge the seizure, often because attorney fees exceed the value of the seized property [19]. Between 2000 and 2019, Minnesota law enforcement agencies collected at least $155 million through forfeiture [19].

At the federal level, the conviction rate in criminal fraud cases exceeds 90%, with the overwhelming majority — 97% in fiscal year 2024 — resulting from guilty pleas rather than trial verdicts [20]. Federal prosecutors rarely drop fraud cases once charges are filed. But the gap between a search warrant and formal charges can be wide: many targets of federal raids are never charged at all, and comprehensive data on the percentage of raided individuals or businesses that face prosecution is not publicly tracked.

The $9 Billion Number — Contested and Consequential

The $9 billion fraud estimate, first publicly cited by then-Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson in December 2025, has become central to the political debate [7]. Thompson's office examined billing records from 14 Medicaid programs deemed "high-risk" and concluded that half or more of the $18 billion paid through those programs since 2018 could be fraudulent [8].

Governor Walz and the Minnesota Department of Human Services disputed the figure, arguing that flagging billing anomalies is not the same as confirming fraud [21]. Distinguishing between overbilling, coding errors, and intentional fraud is a complex audit exercise, and independent verification of the $9 billion estimate has not been completed.

What is established: the Feeding Our Future case alone involved approximately $250 million in proven fraud [9]. Beyond that, prosecutors have secured additional convictions in separate Medicaid fraud cases, and auditors have identified hundreds of millions more in suspicious billing across autism services, childcare subsidies, and housing programs [12]. Whether the total reaches $9 billion or a fraction of that figure will depend on investigations and audits that are still ongoing.

Oversight and Accountability

The legal framework for joint federal-state enforcement operations of this kind is well-established. Federal agencies operate under their own statutory authority — primarily through the FBI, HSI, and IRS Criminal Investigation — and invite state participation through memoranda of understanding or task force agreements. The BCA's involvement in the April 28 raids was authorized through such a cooperative arrangement [3].

Congressional oversight is being exercised primarily through the House Oversight Committee, which has subpoena power and has called multiple witnesses from Minnesota state government [14]. At the state level, the Minnesota Department of Human Services said it has taken steps over the past 18 months to strengthen oversight of fraud-vulnerable programs, conducting 444 on-site visits to autism service providers since October 2025 and beginning to hire independent auditors to review outlier billing [22].

A report by Minnesota's Office of the Legislative Auditor had previously found that a lawsuit filed by Feeding Our Future against the Minnesota Department of Education had a "chilling effect" on the agency's oversight functions — effectively intimidating regulators into pulling back from aggressive monitoring of the programs being exploited [23].

The question of who in Minnesota's executive or legislative branch was informed before the April 28 raids has not been publicly answered. Federal search warrants are typically sealed until executed, and there is no statutory requirement to brief state officials in advance, even when state agencies participate in the operation.

The Broader Pattern

Minnesota is not the only state grappling with pandemic-era fraud. The Government Accountability Office has estimated that more than $200 billion was lost to fraud across federal COVID-19 relief programs nationwide. But the concentration and scale of alleged fraud in Minnesota — across multiple program areas, involving both federal and state funds — stands out nationally [12].

The combination of real, proven fraud (Feeding Our Future's $250 million), large-scale suspicious billing patterns (the disputed $9 billion figure), viral social media attention, aggressive federal enforcement, and the explicit targeting of a specific ethnic community has created a situation with no clear precedent. For prosecutors, the challenge is pursuing legitimate fraud cases without legitimizing ethnic profiling. For the Somali-American community, the challenge is addressing genuine bad actors within their midst while pushing back against collective blame. For state officials, the question is whether the oversight failures that allowed Feeding Our Future to operate for years have been meaningfully corrected.

The 22 search warrants executed on April 28 represent one data point in a much larger, still-unfolding story. Whether they lead to prosecutions, produce exonerations, or simply add to the political noise will depend on evidence that remains, for now, sealed inside the boxes federal agents carried out of Minneapolis that morning.