$110 million in fraud. Exposed in a single day.
Daycare centers claiming 102 children with no children inside. Transportation companies that are actually money-wiring businesses. Learning centers that can’t spell “learning.”
Nick Shirley walked into these facilities with a camera and asked the simplest possible question: where are the kids?
The answer was always the same: empty rooms, angry employees, and millions of taxpayer dollars vanishing into a network that exists on paper and nowhere else.
And now an FBI official has confirmed on hidden camera what everyone suspected: nobody is going to prison for any of it.
Justin Devine Said the Quiet Part Out Loud
O’Keefe Media Group sent an undercover reporter to meet with FBI official Justin Devine.
Devine didn’t hedge. He didn’t equivocate. He laid it out plainly.
“I don’t think anybody would ever go to prison.”
He was speaking specifically about the Somali daycare fraud criminals exposed by Nick Shirley’s investigative reporting. Hundred-million-dollar fraud. Documented on video. Empty facilities collecting millions.
Nobody goes to prison. That’s the FBI’s assessment — delivered off-camera by an official who assumed he was speaking privately.
The Stonewall Strategy
Devine didn’t just predict no arrests. He explained the mechanism.
“By the time that case is done even being looked at, and ready to go to court, Trump won’t even be in office anymore.”
That’s the strategy. Not investigate and fail. Not investigate and find insufficient evidence. Simply delay. Run out the clock. Slow-walk the process until the political environment changes.
Trump won’t be in office forever. A future administration — one more sympathetic to the interests being protected — will quietly drop the cases. The files will be archived. The fraud will continue. The taxpayers will keep paying.
Devine described a system designed not to pursue justice but to prevent it. A bureaucracy whose primary function is protecting the people it’s supposed to investigate.
He Called Kash Patel a “Diva”
Devine’s contempt wasn’t limited to the cases.
He called FBI Director Kash Patel a “diva.”
The man Trump appointed to clean up the FBI — to root out corruption, dismantle political weaponization, restore the Bureau’s mission — dismissed by an FBI official as a “diva” on hidden camera.
This is what reform looks like from inside the bureaucracy. The director issues orders. The bureaucrats ignore them. They mock the leadership, stonewall the investigations, and wait for the political winds to shift.
Patel can dismantle CR-15. He can fire corrupt agents. He can issue directives from the top.
But if the field-level officials responsible for actually conducting investigations are committed to sabotage, the orders never reach the ground.
Escorted Out of the Building
After O’Keefe released the footage, Justin Devine was escorted out of the FBI building.
That’s fast. Remarkably fast by federal bureaucracy standards.
It suggests that Patel’s FBI is at least responsive to public exposure, even if the internal sabotage Devine described is real and ongoing.
But Devine’s removal, while satisfying, doesn’t solve the problem he exposed. He’s one official. The stonewall strategy he described requires dozens — maybe hundreds — of people participating in the slow-walking of cases.
One man escorted out of a building doesn’t dismantle a culture of institutional resistance. It removes one face. The machine keeps running.
$110 Million in One Day
Let the scale of Nick Shirley’s findings register.
He documented over $110 million in fraudulent childcare funding in a single day of investigation. One day. One journalist with a camera.
Not the FBI. Not the DOJ. Not state investigators with subpoena power and forensic accountants.
A journalist who walked into buildings and asked where the children were.
He found daycare centers claiming to serve over 100 children that were completely empty. Facilities receiving millions in annual funding with no evidence of providing any services whatsoever.
He found a transportation company — “Safari Transportation” — that receives millions in state taxpayer money and turned out to be a money-wiring business. Not a bus. Not a van. A storefront sending money overseas.
And a learning center that couldn’t spell the word “learning” on its own sign.
$16 Million More in Part Two
Shirley’s second investigation exposed another $16 million in fraud across Minnesota’s welfare programs.
The pattern was identical every time. State-funded facilities operating fraudulently. Taxpayer money flowing to organizations that provide no services. Buildings that exist on government paperwork but serve no legitimate function in reality.
The fraud isn’t sophisticated. It doesn’t require forensic accounting to detect. You can see it by walking through the front door.
Which raises an obvious question: if a journalist with a camera can find $126 million in fraud in two investigations, why hasn’t the FBI — with unlimited resources, subpoena power, and thousands of agents — found it?
Justin Devine answered that question on hidden camera. They’re not looking. And they don’t plan to start.
Walz Announced He Won’t Run Again
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced he won’t seek reelection after Shirley’s investigations went public.
The man who oversaw the state government that funded these fraudulent programs for years decided his political career was over once the cameras showed up.
Walz didn’t resign in disgrace. He didn’t announce an investigation. He didn’t demand accountability from the agencies that distributed millions to empty buildings.
He simply decided not to run again. A quiet exit from a crime scene he helped create through years of willful blindness.
The System That Protects Fraud
Here’s what Devine’s confession reveals about how the system actually works.
Step one: fraudsters establish organizations that qualify for government funding. Daycare centers. Transportation companies. Learning centers. The paperwork is filed. The licenses are obtained.
Step two: money flows. Millions of dollars per facility per year. Nobody checks whether the services are actually provided. Nobody visits. Nobody counts the children.
Caught On Hidden Camera: FBI Official Admits Minnesota Fraud Investigations Will Result In Zero Arrests
“I don't think anybody [Daycare Fraud Criminals] would ever go to prison.”
“We're [DOJ/FBI] just going to point somebody.”
“By the time that case is done even being looked… pic.twitter.com/Fq9DGphVFo
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 3, 2026
Step three: if someone does investigate — a journalist, a concerned citizen, a political appointee — the bureaucracy activates. Cases are opened slowly. Evidence is processed glacially. Timelines extend until the political environment changes.
Step four: the cases are quietly dropped. The fraud continues. The cycle repeats.
Devine didn’t describe a broken system. He described a functioning one — functioning exactly as designed, to protect fraud and prevent accountability.
What Kash Patel Needs to Do
Escorting Devine out of the building is step one.
Steps two through fifty are harder.
Identify every agent and official involved in stonewalling Minnesota fraud investigations. Review the case files. Determine who delayed, who slow-walked, who buried evidence.
Then fire them. All of them. Not reassign. Not suspend with pay. Fire.
Bring in agents who will actually investigate. Set deadlines. Demand progress reports. Make the Minnesota fraud cases a public priority with public accountability.
Because Justin Devine was right about one thing: the clock is ticking. Trump won’t be in office forever. If these cases aren’t prosecuted during this administration, they’ll be buried by the next one.
The FBI has the resources. It has the authority. What it needs is the will.
Devine’s confession proved the will doesn’t exist at the field level. Patel needs to install it — by force if necessary.
$110 Million in Empty Daycares Is Just the Beginning
Minnesota’s Somali fraud isn’t limited to daycare centers.
Housing programs. Food assistance. Medical benefits. Transportation subsidies. Educational grants.
Every government program that distributes money based on claims rather than verification is vulnerable to the same scheme.
If $110 million in daycare fraud can be documented in one day by one journalist, the total fraud across all programs is almost certainly in the billions.
And an FBI official just confirmed on hidden camera that nobody plans to do anything about it.
The tape doesn’t lie. The system does.
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