Empty buildings. Fake enrollments. Texts about buying mansions in Nairobi — sent from a Dubai vacation. The FBI just raided 22 daycares. Investigators say this was an open secret for years.

The Fraud Files · Fox News · May 1, 2026

MN fraud estimate $19B

COVID fraud found $22B+

Daycares raided 22

PPP loans (Planned Parenthood) $90M

There’s a daycare in Minnesota called the Quality Learning Center. Neighbors will tell you it’s been empty for as long as anyone can remember. No kids coming or going, no teachers, no noise — just a building sitting there, collecting government money. The FBI just raided it anyway. Along with 21 others just like it.

That’s the image at the center of what investigators are now calling one of the most audacious fraud operations in American history — and according to a new Fox News report, it was an open secret in Minnesota for years while state officials allegedly looked the other way.

“How much longer are you going to do the daycare scam? Another year or two. I’m going to buy some nice homes in Nairobi.”

— Text message exchange cited by investigators. The sender was on public assistance. They were vacationing in Dubai at the time.

The text message alone tells you everything you need to know about how brazen this got. A daycare owner — on public assistance — messaging someone about how much longer they could keep running the scam, while sitting on a vacation in Dubai, already making plans to spend the money on real estate in Kenya. Whatever safeguards were supposed to catch this clearly weren’t working.

The White House puts the total fraud estimate from Minnesota alone at $19 billion — a figure that’s almost hard to process until you hear the comparison Jesse Watters used on air: that’s roughly what the Iran military operation is costing. For reference. One state. Daycares.

“The arsonist claiming credit for the fire department”

Critics of Minnesota’s former governor Tim Walz aren’t letting him off quietly. Investigators who worked the case say they received little to no cooperation from the governor’s office during the years this was unfolding — and now that federal agents are making arrests, Walz has been positioning himself as part of the cleanup effort.

One investigator didn’t mince words: “This is like the arsonist trying to claim credit for the work of the fire department.” Whether Walz was directly aware of the scope of the fraud or simply failed to act on warnings, sources close to the investigation say the governor’s office was not a cooperative partner — and that investigators had to move despite the state, not with it.

WHAT INVESTIGATORS FOUND — AT A GLANCE

■22 daycares raided by FBI — including at least one that neighbors confirm has been visibly empty for years

■Text messages showing operators openly discussing the fraud and planning overseas real estate purchases

■$22B+ in COVID-era fraud now under investigation nationally — investigators accuse the prior administration’s auto-pen of shielding scammers

■Planned Parenthood allegedly received $90M in PPP loans it wasn’t entitled to — Biden administration reportedly forgave the debt and tried to obscure it using code words like “Benghazi” in internal emails

■Thousands of food stamp recipients reportedly driving Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Bentleys — per a new federal report

The “Benghazi” cover — and what it means

Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising detail to emerge involves Planned Parenthood and pandemic relief loans. The Trump team alleges the organization received $90 million in PPP loans it was never legally eligible for — and that when the Biden administration moved to forgive those loans, staffers allegedly used the codeword “Benghazi” in internal emails instead of writing “Planned Parenthood” directly, making the transactions harder to trace.

Senator Joni Ernst has reportedly confirmed the existence of those emails. If the account is accurate, it suggests the concealment wasn’t accidental — someone made a deliberate choice to obscure a paper trail.

A broader pattern is also taking shape. Commentators on the right have long argued that federal money flows to liberal-aligned nonprofits and advocacy groups, which then funnel donations back to Democratic candidates — creating a self-reinforcing loop funded by the taxpayer. The fraud investigation is now giving that argument new legs, and investigators say Minnesota is just where the digging started.

“I think Minneapolis is the tip of the iceberg.”

— Federal fraud investigator, speaking to Fox News

The investigation is ongoing. JD Vance’s team is said to be coordinating with a broader anti-fraud task force, and new names are reportedly surfacing. The “Fraud Files” series promises more to come — and if the Minnesota numbers are any indication, this story has a long way left to run.

For now, the Quality Learning Center sits empty. Nobody’s learning anything there. But the people who ran it apparently learned one thing very well — how to make your money disappear before anyone came looking.