Nick Shirley Uncovers Over $170 Million in Alleged Fraud Across California Daycare and Hospice Operations

Independent journalist Nick Shirley has released a devestating 40-minute investigative video that exposes what appears to be massive waste and potential fraud in California’s hospice, Medi-Cal and daycare programs. His report, now viewed more than 7.7 million times on X, uncovers over $170 million in questionable billings tied to ghost hospice and daycare operations that show virtually no signs of actually caring for patients or children.

WATCH:

🚨 Here is the full 40 minutes of my crew and I exposing California fraud, Minnesota was big but California is even bigger… We uncovered over $170,000,000 in fraud as these fraudsters live in luxury with no consequences. Like it and share it, the fraud must STOP.

We ALL work… pic.twitter.com/7nWX9jL6NI

— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) March 17, 2026

Shirley, already known for shining a light on government waste through his earlier work on Minnesota’s daycare system which featured the infamous “Learing Center,” has brought the same boots-on-the-ground approach to California— an approach that any state or federal auditor could have found if they acted on the numerous red flags and warnings found in years of California State Auditors’ annual reports and related California Globe reporting.

In the viral video, Shirley reports that hospice enrollment in California has skyrocketed by approximately 1,000 percent in recent years—a staggering increase that should have triggered additional scrutiny. 

His team conducted field investigations at dense clusters of hospice and adult care providers in Los Angeles, focusing heavily on Victory Boulevard in Van Nuys. Time and again, registered addresses turned out to be vacant shells: buildings with dead phone lines, piles of unopened mail, parking lots filled with luxury vehicles, and zero evidence of patients or caregiving, even as millions of taxpayer dollars continued to flow from public programs.

Shirley notes: “These practices have gone on for years under weak oversight. Hardworking Californians deserve real accountability, and this level of abuse cannot be allowed to continue.”

The video presents several damning highlights. Shirley documented extraordinary concentrations of registered providers—nearly 500 hospice agencies crammed into a three-mile radius in Van Nuys, with up to 89 listed at a single address—most showing no operational activity whatsoever. 

The footage points to stolen Medicare beneficiary numbers being used to enroll people who never received a single service. 

In one tense exchange, a man who has been running hospice businesses since the 1990s was visibly shaking when pressed about the operation and admitted he wasn’t a fan of Dr. Mehmet Oz, who had just visited Van Nuys to highlight medicare fraud in an Armenian community, and alleged fraudulent home care operations were run by the Russian Armenian mafia. In response to Oz’s video exposé, Governor Newsom filed a civil rights complaint alleging racism.

Shirley’s additional encounters showed people refusing to answer questions, demanding Shirley’s identification, calling 9-11, and fleeing the scene in luxury vehicles.

Vehicles leaving these ghost facilities included a Mercedes-Maybach S 680 (base prices from $233,500 to $270,000, with loaded models nearing $345,000) and a BMW M8 (typically $117,000 to $131,000).

The investigation further revealed apparent ties among providers suggesting family-run enterprises, with clear indications that coordinated networks (like the Russian Armenian mafia) are managing billing and locations across multiple sites. 

This raises serious questions about how such schemes have been permitted to flourish for so long. Shirley noted that when pressure mounts, operators simply shutter one location and reopen elsewhere under new names or addresses—a cycle of fraud and evasion flouts excess and mocks state oversight.

This is how the hospice fraud works:
– Get a small office in LA
– Collect Medicare beneficiary numbers
– Enroll people into hospice
– Bill the government for millions

Get caught or become suspicious?
Pack up and walk away with millions

END ALL THE FRAUD. pic.twitter.com/xbQFCXKH6B

— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) March 17, 2026

Shirley’s findings align directly with years of reporting from The California Globe, which has consistently exposed waste under California’s progressive leadership. 

Our March 11, 2026, article “Hospice Fraud Explodes in California After State ‘Crackdown’: 742 Flagged Providers, $105 Million Overbilled, and Ghost Offices” cited a CBS News investigation that identified more than 700 providers in Los Angeles County with multiple red flags—clustered addresses, billing without patient documentation, and other clear warning signs. Despite the state revoking roughly 280 licenses since 2024, auditors calculated $105 million in overbilling in a single year in L.A. County alone, and the number of flagged providers has climbed to 742.

In December 2025, Rep. Kevin Kiley charged that California was “the Fraud Capital of America,”  pointing to tens of billions lost to fraud, waste, and abuse across unemployment insurance, homelessness programs, and health care initiatives under one-party Democrat control.

Before turning to hospices, Shirley traveled to San Diego to investigate child care facilities, teaming up with conservative researcher Amy Reichert. Reichert had flagged multiple centers reporting high enrollment figures—sometimes as many as 39 children—yet showing no children present during state inspections or site visits.

Shirley includes captured footage of these locations, documenting children left alone, playgrounds next to homeless encampments, and the same pattern of apparent inactivity that has become a hallmark of his reporting. He has stated that the scale of problems he is uncovering in California, including in San Diego’s child care sector, may surpass what he documented previously in Minnesota.

The San Diego video’s release drew a deflective response from Governor Gavin Newsom’s official @GovPressOfficeaccount on X by personally attacking the messenger:

Nick Shirley, right now pic.twitter.com/vWrp34Dmfa

— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) March 17, 2026

Shirley called the post “disgusting” and warned he is considering legal recourse, emphasizing there is “no need to try & make me look like the bad guy for exposing fraud.”

“We ALL work way too hard and pay too much in taxes for this to be happening. These fraudsters have been able to defraud American taxpayers for years without any pushback from the public and politicians. It is time to EXPOSE IT ALL and end America’s fraud crisis.”

Shirley’s latest viral video follows President Trump’s announcement and executive order yesterday that Vice President JD Vance will lead the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud and White House aide Stephen Miller will serve as senior adviser.

“In states across the country, fraudsters are depriving vulnerable citizens of basic social services, stealing billions of your tax dollars, and eroding America’s social fabric,” a Vance spokesperson told The New York Post. “This fraud has happened on such a massive scale that it’s endangering the future viability of America’s entire social safety net.”

A document obtained by The Post describing the order said that, in addition to Minnesota, “there is strong reason to believe similar vulnerabilities exist in California, Illinois, New York, Maine, and Colorado, where insufficient safeguards and weak oversight increase the risk of large-scale fraud.”

“We know California is many times worse, but Minnesota is terrible,” Trump said to the press.

As exposed by Nick Shirley and deflected by Governor Newsom, California is hundreds-of-millions times worse.