In the age of viral internet sensations, enter Nick Shirley, the 23-year-old independent journalist YouTuber who’s taken the digital world by storm. What’s he doing, you ask? Only exposing fraudulent Somali businesses left and right by simply knocking on their doors. It’s a scene straight out of a mystery caper—every single establishment he visits appears to be a front. No children, no patients, just silence behind blacked-out windows. It’s like the set of a ghost town, conjured solely to cash in on government funds without lifting a finger.
In one jaw-dropping video, Shirley takes on the daycare centers of Minnesota, bursting with questions about where the children are and what exactly the massive sums of government money are being spent on. With 2.66 million dollars reportedly funding a facility that’s supposed to care for over a hundred kids, he wasn’t expecting to find it empty. Yet, there he stands, locked out, bewildered alongside his audience—all while facing the wrath of confrontational business owners calling the police. Can you imagine the audacity of merely inquiring about the location of phantom children?
What adds a hint of the absurd is the quality—or lack thereof—of these establishments. One supposed center of learning couldn’t even spell “learning” correctly on its sign, instead opting for a misspelled “Learing.” Did spell check break along with their honesty? You’d think an organization raking in nearly two million dollars would at least get that right. Yet here we are, watching video evidence of such blunders as Shirley’s lens captures everything—an empty playground during midday and window blinds firmly shut against prying eyes.
Beyond daycare debacles, Shirley takes his crusade to healthcare offices, where getting any form of meaningful interaction is like breaking into Fort Knox. Signage warns of surveillance, no trespassing, and even armed security. All Shirley wanted was to inquire about health services, but he found himself being escorted off the premises by local law enforcement instead. If this is how public services are buried under a mound of secrecy, one has to wonder how deep the rabbit hole of deception goes.
Nick Shirley’s citizen journalism takes clever jabs at the hypocrisy of allowing fraud to flourish unchecked. As these videos spread, one hopes they ignite a broader conversation. Are taxpayers funding real services or empty shell operations? The world watched, laughed, and cringed at the audacity of these institutions. And while Shirley might have caught quite the unwanted attention from those he exposed, viewers are undoubtedly hooked, waiting to see what he unearths next.
