“If this list of 14 doesn’t shock you, you’re asleep,” comments social media user Kojo Gyima.
For weeks, Minnesota’s daycare fraud scandal has dominated headlines after investigators revealed that as much as $9 billion in public funds may be tied up in programs vulnerable to waste, fraud, or outright abuse—largely by Minnesota’s Somali community. Viral videos, including those by Nick Shirley, brought the story to life by showing empty storefronts and nonexistent daycare centers that nonetheless received millions in taxpayer money. Just yesterday, President Trump and the US Department of Health and Human Services announced they had frozen all child care payments to the state as the FBI conducts its investigation.
But daycare, for all the attention it has drawn, is only one slice of a much larger system of social services now under scrutiny. Recent comments from Minnesota Republican Senator Michael Holmstrom make clear that what Shirley exposed may only be a single visible thread in a much larger tapestry of fraud. Pull that first thread, and the rest of the picture may begin to unravel.
“If you are rightfully upset about the daycare fraud in Minnesota, it is only one program,” Sen. Holmstrom said on Twitter/X. “There are 14 programs identified as high risk by federal prosecutors. These are being called the ‘fraudy 14.’”
He then lists, in this order, Adult Companion Services; Adult Day Services; Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services; Assertive Community Treatment; Community First Services and Supports (Personal Care Assistance); Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention (EIDBI) services for autism; Housing Stabilization Services; Individualized Home Supports; Integrated Community Supports; Intensive Residential Treatment Services; Night Supervision Services; Nonemergency Medical Transportation Services; Peer Recovery/Recovery Peer Support Services; and Recuperative Care.
“If this list of 14 doesn’t shock you, you’re asleep. Every program listed was meant to help people, yet millions are being stolen. People need to demand audits, accountability, and real action now before it spreads further,” comments social media user Kojo Gyima.
This article will illustrate how deep the proverbial rabbit hole goes just in looking at one of the aforementioned high-risk areas. Much of these findings were discovered through independent investigative work by Twitter/X user @PatriotVerity, who has focused closely on Minnesota’s autism-related service providers. The account belongs to a mother of three children with special medical needs, including two sons with autism, who says the issue is deeply personal. “Companies using autism to commit fraud is an issue that deeply concerns me,” she explained.
She began looking first at Raising Stars Autism Center (NPI: 1346881786), which Minnesota’s Open Checkbook shows received roughly $500,000 in state funds. Despite being registered since 2019 and receiving substantial public money, Raising Stars has no Google reviews, little to no digital footprint, and several inconsistencies across public records. The phone number listed on the company’s website and Google profile does not match the number tied to its NPI registration. That NPI-associated number is instead connected to Mirad A. Farah, a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC), not the listed owner, Nimo Hussein Abdi.
Farah is also linked to Mercy Counseling Center, one of the businesses featured in Nick Shirley’s viral Minnesota daycare investigation. Mercy Counseling Center is registered at a building that houses multiple health-related LLC’s, many of which have bare-bones websites, nonexistent reviews, and social media links that lead nowhere.
“It is worth noting that most autism centers hire BCBA’s (Board Certified Behavior Analysts), rather than LPCC’s,” she said, adding that Raising Stars’ “Meet the Staff” page does not list any employees at all.
When PatriotVerity called the phone number associated with Raising Stars, the person who answered did not identify the business and was unable to answer basic questions about insurance or services.
We called separately to the same phone number to ask routine questions about services and operations, and the respondent immediately hung up on us.
Abdi is also connected to another entity, Twins Healing Center. We tried contacting the business multiple times but our calls were never answered.
The alleged business lists a secondary address at 425 Benson Ave SW in Willmar, Minnesota. That same address is associated with at least two other entities—Willmar Autism Services LLC and US Care Home Care LLC—and realtor listings show the building is only 1,420 square feet. In total, roughly ten companies appear to list the same address, which is far too small to accommodate that many entities.
One such entity sharing this space is US Home Care LLC. Their phone number on Google has a Utah area code. Upon calling, a male did answer—to his credit—but refused to identify the name of the business or his own name. It appears to be his personal cell.
He denied any connection to the Willmar address (more on that later) and said we had “no authority” to ask basic operational questions about a business bankrolled by taxpayers. He also claimed that he was going to let the alleged front desk workers not to take calls today or speak with us because we “are racist,” although race, ethnicity, and identity was never once mentioned or even tangentially implied during the call.
US Home Care’s authorized official is listed as Abdirahman Hussein Abdi, who shares the same surname as Nimo Hussein Abdi. While Abdi is a relatively common Somali surname and not inherently incriminating, Abdirahman Abdi is also listed as an associate of both Raising Stars Autism Center and Twins Healing Center. Taken together, Abdi’s entities have received at least $4 million in state funds and approximately $2 million in federal funding.
PatriotVerity reports that “the property is owned by Genoveva Ayon, but is occupied by Abdirahman H. (Hussein?) Abdi.”
Public business records suggest that Abdirahman Hussein Abdi has owned or operated a wide range of unrelated ventures, including a trucking company, a home healthcare provider, an autism center, an LLC called Luxury Spotlight, another called Educatic Consultant, and even a purported charter school named Kandiyohi Academy.
The “charter school’s” own Facebook page lists the business name as both Kandiohaye and Kandiyohi (Academy). It has one post with one reaction. The one reacting is one Hajji Kadar Abdi. Hajji Kadar Abdi is almost undoubtedly Abdirahman Hussein Abdi, as his own page states he is the CEO at Kandiyohi.
No other staff are connected to this school, though it claims to offer kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, and fourth grade classes. We are similarly unable to confirm even one single parent or family member who ever enrolled a student here. Their website is a dead link.
Further, the page claims their address is 1112 Lake Ave NW, Willmar, MN 56201, which according to Google belongs to the Islamic Society of Willmar. Hajji Kadar Abdi’s Facebook page lists Willmar as his place of residence. The 425 Benson Ave, Willmar address connected to Abdirahman Hussein Abdi—and which ten other businesses claim to reside—is 1.2 miles away.
As a reminder, the individual who answered the personal cell number listed for US Care Home Care LLC—which itself is owned by Abdirahman Hussein Abdi—denied any connection between his business and the Willmar address, despite its abundant connections to Abdi.
“Another interesting fact is if you search for Nimo Hussein Abdi on Google one of the first results is an Instagram of a Somalian woman in Minnesota who loves to post designer bags she purchases for thousands of dollars,” writes PartiotVerity. “There’s no indication that she runs an autism center.”
This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
The public reaction to this reporting by PatriotVerity and others has been overwhelmingly positive, and it has inspired dozens of citizens to start looking into tools and resources for scanning public records and seeing where taxpayer funds were allocated. One account claims to have already found “dozens and dozens” of potential fraudsters.
“God bless you for taking the time to do this! As a Dad of two special needs kids, it sickens me that these horrible people used autism as their vehicle to steal. I feel like this whole thing could be unraveled thru crowd sourcing our amazing special needs community,” responds one commenter.
At least for now, reporting on these cases necessarily relies on tweets, screenshots, and direct pulls from public records databases, because much of this investigative work is not being pursued by mainstream media outlets. Coverage to date has largely been reactive rather than proactive, and most of the “fraudulent 14” areas are yet untouched.
That approach has placed an outsized burden on private citizens to surface red flags that journalists and regulators should be examining as a matter of course. Until legacy outlets begin systematically interrogating these records, independent investigators documenting what they find in public databases remain one of the few ways these patterns come to light.
“Every damn one of these in every state, Red or Blue, needs to be investigated,” comments John Chamberlain, CEO of the Free2Care coalition.
