Claim:
In December 2025, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz hired a Somali company for $8 billion to investigate fraud in the state.
Rating:
As reports of a sprawling tax fraud scheme by members of Minnesota’s Somali community multiplied in late December 2025, a rumor circulated online that the state’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz had granted $8 billion to a Somali company to investigate fraud in Minnesota.
For example, on Dec. 29, a Facebook user posted a screenshot of an article noting Walz’s alleged decision to hire Somali investigators (archived). The report’s headline read: “Walz Announces $8 Billion Grant To Somali Company To Investigate Fraud.”
(Facebook)
Many people in the comments seemed to believe the story was real and the claim, with a link to the story, also appeared on X.
Several web searches that used various combination of keywords — including “Tim Walz” or “Walz,” “8 billion,” “Somali company” and “investigating fraud” — revealed no reputable news reports on such a story.
Given that on Dec. 28, amid the growing reports of Somali tax fraud schemes, FBI Director Kash Patel announced the agency had “surged” investigations into fraudulent benefit claims in Minnesota, numerous news media outlets would have reported on Walz making such an announcement. This was not the case.
Instead, the rumor about Walz hiring a Somali company to investigate fraud originated with The Babylon Bee — a well-known Christian satirical website. The screenshot in the above Facebook post contained the site’s logo. Its About page stated:
The Babylon Bee is the world’s best satire site, totally inerrant in all its truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff, political stuff, and everyday life.
The Babylon Bee was created ex nihilo on the eighth day of the creation week, exactly 6,000 years ago. We have been the premier news source through every major world event, from the Tower of Babel and the Exodus to the Reformation and the War of 1812. We focus on just the facts, leaving spin and bias to other news sites like CNN and Fox News.
If you would like to complain about something on our site, take it up with God.
Unlike other satire sites, everything we post is 100% verified by Snopes.com.
The Babylon Bee was correct in noting that Snopes had investigated many of its stories. For example, we looked into a rumor that Democratic lawmakers drank food dyes to protest policies Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced. We also addressed a claim that, as a history teacher in 1999, Walz recruited young boys for a gay club.
For further reading, Snopes analyzed an independent journalist’s investigation into purportedly Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota allegedly receiving millions of dollars in fraudulent payments of taxpayer money without providing actual childcare services.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.
