A Minnesota daycare center owner featured in YouTuber Nick Shirley’s viral video showcasing alleged bogus childcare facilities has admitted to filing more than $4.6 million false claims.
Fahima Mahamud, CEO of Future Leaders Early Learning Center in Minneapolis, which featured in Shirley’s December video round-up of questionable facilities around the Twin Cities, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to defraud the US in a plea deal, Newsweek reported.
According to prosecutors, between October 2022 and November 2025 Mahamud filed claims for more than $4.6 million from the Child Care Assistance Program, a federal program that provides daycare assistance for low-income families, for recipients who never paid the required co-payment.
According to prosecutors, Future Leaders also received over $850,000 between January and July 2021 through Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota food program that bilked taxpayers out of $250 million and led to charges against 79 individuals involved in the fraud, many of them of Somali descent.
Prosecutors said Mahamud claimed to serve tens of thousands of meals to hungry children at the center each month, but actually “served only a fraction of those claimed meals,” court documents state.
She closed down Future Leaders in February — and tried to flee the US to London two days later.
Mahamud’s sentencing date has not been set.
Aimee Bock, the mastermind behind the scheme, was handed a stunning four-decade prison sentence in May for helming what prosecutors called one of the largest pandemic-era fraud schemes in the country.
