We saw in investigative reporter Nick Shirley’s December 2025 exposé of the infamous Minneapolis “Learing Center” how easy it seems to be to defraud the federal government’s state-run assistance programs.
It works like this: the feds give oodles of cash to the states, who then hand it out like candy, and if it’s a state like Minnesota or California, there appears to be very little oversight and plenty of graft. Gov. Tim Walz’s Gopher State has been at the top of bad actors, but many claim fraud in California is practiced on an industrial scale.
Sure enough, naturalized U.S. citizens from Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq have now been charged with stealing our hard-earned money by pretending to be taking care of kids while they were actually leading la vida loca.
Twelve of them in the San Diego area are now facing the music and are charged with illicitly hauling in over $10 million, Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald announced Tuesday:
The defendants from this takedown are naturalized U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents originally from Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The map below shows locations of the executed search warrants in this daycare fraud investigation.
— National Fraud Enforcement Division (@DOJFraudDiv) September 15, 2026
“These charges… https://t.co/fNybdiTUE4 pic.twitter.com/xo09tDVRV3
The defendants from this takedown are naturalized U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents originally from Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The map below shows locations of the executed search warrants in this daycare fraud investigation.
“These charges underscore a simple truth: anyone who steals from programs meant to support children will face swift and uncompromising accountability,” said AAGMcDonald.
Fraud against these programs is an attack on vulnerable families, and law enforcement will continue to dismantle schemes that exploit them. I want to thank the prosecutors and agents in the Southern District of California whose relentless work exposed this scheme and ensured that those responsible are being held accountable.”
It’s part of the broader crackdown authorized by Trump’s Executive Order Protecting The American People Against Invasion, which he signed into law on his first day back in office in January 2025.
“Today is a bad day for home daycare fraud,” said U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon for the Southern District of California in a statement. “These are the first charges alleging this type of fraud since the formation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division. These fraudsters may have criminally gamed the system before. But today, the game is over.”
The brazenness of some of these schemes is what’s most shocking. Like the many fraudsters taken down in Minnesota, these characters seemed to operate with little fear and no expectation that anyone from state or local authorities would ever come around to see what they were actually doing with the money.
It seems it’s ridiculously easy to become a millionaire in Gavin Newsom’s Golden State. That is, if you're completely immoral or lawless:
The complaints describe how surveillance recordings of the defendants’ licensed facilities conflicted with what the defendants claimed in their attendance records. For example, Abdulrahman Ayman Alawad submitted attendance records claiming to have provided childcare to 23 children in March 2026 and 25 children April 2026, and that he provided childcare every day of those two months. But surveillance recordings covering 57 days of those months showed children entering or exiting Mr. Alawad’s facility on just one day — coincidentally, the day a state inspector showed up for an unannounced inspection, when children and Mr. Alawad himself arrived at the facility after the inspector arrived.
Additionally, Mr. Alawad and several other defendants submitted attendance records claiming to have provided childcare at their homes when border crossing records shows they were not even in the United States.
I think we all knew that fraud was a part of our society, but it’s nonetheless been shocking to see the scope of the scourge exposed by the Trump administration, from pandemic loan ripoffs to healthcare schemes to child nutrition scams.
There are 12 fewer of them operating today.
Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law and order agenda.
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