A Craigslist advertisement later revealed to be a prank said that a daycare center in Minneapolis’ Ventura Village neighborhood was hiring 20 child actors for three days to pose as attendees while US authorities investigate a series of alleged fraud schemes at Minnesota daycare centers run by Somalian residents.
The ad, which is no longer live, said that the actors would be paid US$1,500 per day.
The ad, which was posted on Jan. 1 in Craigslist’s Hennepin County, Minnesota, section for general labor jobs, was bait for an online prank show, its cohost Joey LaFleur told reporters.
Photo: Reuters
“The show’s called Goofcon1 and it is a funny show,” LaFleur said. “We do pranks and stuff like that.”
The show received a “ton of responses” to the ad and said he and his two cohosts would be doing a live show on Saturday during which they would call people who expressed interest.
Screenshots of the ad were used in social media posts on multiple platforms, cited as evidence of fraud at Minnesota daycare centers.
“BREAKING — A Craigslist ad seeking child actors for a daycare in Minneapolis’ Hennepin County has been discovered, with the poster requesting 20 children to act as clients while the state observes them to determine whether it’s a legitimate daycare,” a post on X that shared the ad said.
A man in a TikTok video called the ad “100 percent serious.”
LaFleur said that in addition to being a prank show, Goofcon1 wants to protect against predators and call out conservatives who “don’t care about fact checking.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz ended his bid for a third term on Monday amid the fraud investigations.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday said that it launched what it described as the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out by the agency — with 2,000 federal agents and officers expected in the Minneapolis area for a crackdown tied in part to the daycare center allegations.
“The largest DHS operation ever is happening right now in Minnesota,” it wrote on X.
The government planned to send about 2,000 US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers to Minnesota, a US official and a person briefed on the matter said.
The agents were expected to be dispatched in the Minneapolis-St Paul area, said the sources, who were not authorized to publicly discuss operational details and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Immigrant rights groups and elected officials in the cities reported a sharp increase in sightings of federal agents, notably around St Paul.
Agents’ vehicles were reported making traffic stops outside area businesses and apartment buildings.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was also present and accompanied immigration officers during at least one arrest.
A video posted on X showed Noem wearing a tactical vest and knit cap as agents arrested a man in St Paul.
In the video, she tells the handcuffed man: “You will be held accountable for your crimes.”
DHS in a statement said that the man was from Ecuador and was wanted in his homeland and Connecticut on charges including murder and sexual assault.
It said agents arrested 150 people on Monday in enforcement actions in Minneapolis.
Walz called the federal enforcement surge “a war that’s being waged against Minnesota.”
“You’re seeing that we have a ridiculous surge of apparently 2,000 people not coordinating with us, that are for a show of cameras,” Walz told reporters in Minneapolis on Tuesday, a day after announcing he was ending his campaign for a third term.
Walz made the announcement following reports of rampant fraud at daycare centers operated by Somalian residents in Minneapolis, although he did not explicitly acknowledge the reports.
However, Nick Shirley, an independent reporter who posted a video of daycare centers where there were apparently no attendees took credit for the governor’s decision.
“I ENDED TIM WALZ,” Shirley wrote on social media on Monday.
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