A 23-year-old kid in a hoodie just uncovered $170 million in hospice and daycare fraud in California — and he did it in a few weeks with a camera crew and an internet connection. Nick Shirley, the same independent journalist whose Minnesota daycare investigation ended Tim Walz’s political career, dropped a 40-minute video on X showing empty buildings, padlocked gates, and dead phone lines at “hospice centers” that have been billing Medicare for millions of dollars.

The video has over 9 million views. California’s state auditor has been on the payroll for decades. Guess which one found the fraud.

Here’s how insane this is. There are 1,800 hospice providers registered in Los Angeles County. In 2010, there were 109. That’s a 1,500% increase. You know what didn’t increase by 1,500%? The number of people dying. The population needing hospice care in LA went up about 40% in the same period. So either Los Angeles suddenly became the hospice capital of the universe, or somebody’s running the biggest Medicare scam in American history.

(Spoiler: it’s the second one.)

Shirley and his crew visited one building on Friar Street in Van Nuys where — and we promise we’re not making this up — 89 separate hospice companies are registered to the same address. Eighty-nine. In one building. About 40 of them billed Medicare for more than $38 million in 2023 alone. That’s roughly $28,000 per “patient” at facilities where Shirley found nobody home, mail piling up, and not a single sign of anyone actually providing care to anyone.

One outfit called All Day Hospice Care billed $3.1 million from a tiny unmarked suite in an office building. When Shirley showed up with questions, they closed up shop. Just packed up and walked away. With $3.1 million of your money.

“Hey, nice hospice business you’ve got here. Where are all the dying people?”

“We’re, uh… closed today.”

And this is just one stretch of Los Angeles. California’s own auditor flagged 742 companies showing fraud indicators across the county. Seven hundred and forty-two. The auditor flagged this back in 2022. You know what California did about it? Absolutely nothing. They had a report that said “hey, there are hundreds of fake hospice companies billing Medicare for millions” and they filed it in the same drawer where Gavin Newsom keeps his principles.

Now here’s the part that makes this story truly legendary. This isn’t Shirley’s first rodeo. Three months ago, this same kid posted a 42-minute video about daycare fraud in Minnesota. That video led to $185 million in federal childcare funding getting frozen. It also led to something even better — Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and Kamala Harris’s handpicked running mate, dropped his reelection bid. A 23-year-old YouTuber in a hoodie that says “Support Independent Journalism” ended a sitting governor’s political career.

And now he’s doing it again. In a bigger state. With bigger numbers.

Let’s do some math that the state of California apparently can’t. Shirley’s Minnesota investigation: $110 million in alleged fraud. His California investigation: $170 million. That’s $280 million in taxpayer fraud exposed by one guy in three months. Meanwhile, California employs an entire Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse with a budget, staff, offices, and government pensions — and they’ve been watching 1,800 hospice companies sprout up in LA County like weeds in a vacant lot without so much as knocking on a door.

Alexa, what’s the annual budget of California’s fraud investigation unit?

The fraud scheme itself is almost elegant in its simplicity. You rent a small office in LA. You collect Medicare beneficiary numbers. You enroll people into hospice — sometimes without them even knowing it. You bill the government for millions. And when someone finally shows up to ask questions, you close up shop and walk away with the cash. Rinse, repeat, retire to a nicer zip code.

This is exactly how the USAID scam worked, by the way. The grift is always the same — set up a shell, bill the taxpayer, disappear before anyone checks. The only difference is the label on the door.

So what did the great state of California do when a 23-year-old exposed $170 million in fraud happening right under their noses? Did the governor call a press conference? Launch an investigation? Fire somebody?

Nope. Gavin Newsom’s press office posted a meme.

We’re not kidding. The official press account for the governor of the fifth-largest economy in the world responded to a $170 million fraud exposé by posting an AI-generated image of a creepy guy with cameras strapped to his body standing in a daycare, with a quote bubble that read: “Hey, can I see your kids?”

The caption? “Nick Shirley, right now.”

Let that sink in. The governor’s official response to someone exposing massive government fraud was to imply that the journalist investigating it is a predator. That’s like catching your accountant embezzling and then accusing the auditor of being nosy.

Shirley fired back: “You do realize I’m trying to help America eliminate fraud and waste, right? No need to try and make me look like the bad guy for exposing fraud. People are over it. Start working for the people and not against them.”

Newsom’s meme got 18,000 likes. Shirley’s response? Over 200,000. Ratioed so hard the California coast shifted another inch into the Pacific.

(Paul Mauro is now urging Shirley to sue the state of California. We like where his head’s at.)

This is what panic looks like, folks. When a state government’s response to a fraud investigation isn’t “we’ll look into it” but “let’s call the journalist a creep,” you know the fraud is real and they know it too. That’s not governance. That’s a cover-your-rear press strategy from people who got caught sleeping at the wheel — or worse, people who knew what was happening and looked the other way.

The real story here isn’t Newsom’s pathetic meme. It’s that we now live in a country where one independent journalist with a camera is doing more to protect taxpayers than entire state agencies with billion-dollar budgets. Nick Shirley has exposed more government fraud in three months than most state auditors find in a career. He ended a governor’s political ambitions in Minnesota. He’s about to make life very uncomfortable for a whole lot of people in California.

And all it cost was a plane ticket and a hoodie.

Mark my words — Shirley’s not done. There are 49 other states full of “hospice centers” with no patients and daycare centers with no kids. The federal government just learned that one kid with a camera can do what their entire fraud apparatus couldn’t. Before this is over, DOGE is going to be citing Shirley’s videos in their audits and Congress is going to be hauling California officials in front of committees.

Gavin Newsom wanted to run for president in 2028. Between the fires, the fraud, and the fact that his best response to a journalist was a meme, the “hair apparent” might want to update his LinkedIn instead.