The Department of Justice said 59-year-old Abdirizak Farah, who founded Focus Learning Academy of Northern Columbus and Focus Learning Academy of Central Columbus and also served as a senior policy advisor for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, admitted to using school funding for personal expenses.
In 2020, Farah had bought a home in New Albany for $900,000. Two days before the original closing date, Farah was found to have requested a wire transfer for more than $260,000 from a bank account associated with Focus Learning, the school Farah had founded, to another person, claiming it was for 'learning materials.'
That same day, Farah sent a letter to the bank handling his closing, saying that he had received $260,000 in gift funding unrelated to the real estate transaction. The next day, the person who had received the wired funds then wired $260,000 to the title company handling the closing. Over the following days, several vendors for Focus Learning Academy of Northern Columbus made payments totaling approximately $265,000 to the person who had assisted Farah, and the money was then returned.
“The role of IRS Criminal Investigation becomes even more important in complex financial investigations that can take time to unravel," Special Agent Karen Wingerd with IRS Criminal Investigation. said in a media release "Federal tax laws are normally violated in these types of cases which add additional jail time to sentences. As we often see, the victims are not only American taxpayers, but also individuals and businesses who suffer financial harm.