Fraudster unveils plan to turn Minnesota lakeside into enormous Muslim town

A Minnesota real estate developer has unveiled plans for a controversial “Muslim-friendly” community.

Faraaz Yussuf hopes to build a city for about 1,500 residents on a former sod farm near the Twin Cities.

The community, called Madinah Lakes, will be centered around a $15 million mosque and include a mix of housing types and businesses.

However, the controversial project suffered a setback after opposition from the city of Lino Lakes, where the development is proposed.

Officials have voted to impose a moratorium on the development, which will halt construction for a year.

Opponents have raised concerns about population density and whether the country can support so much development.

However, Yussuf and supporters of the project claim that the opposition is motivated by Islamophobia.

This argument has resurfaced after some locals began asking questions about Yussuf’s background, which includes a conviction for fraud.

Yussuf, formerly known as Faraaz Mohammed, was convicted of theft by deception in 2013. Star Tribune reports.

He admitted to writing unauthorized checks to himself totaling $20,000 while working as an accountant for a company called Forevergreen.

He took a plea deal that reduced the crime to a misdemeanor and has since claimed it was a wrongful conviction, without explaining how.

And in October 2023, Minnesota company Royal Priesthood LLC sued him, claiming his company failed to complete the renovation of a Minneapolis apartment complex as part of a $62,000 contract.

Olaleye Olagbaju, owner of the Royal Priesthood, said Yussuf had lied about being a licensed contractor. He eventually got $25,000 of his money back.

Yussuf said he changed his name after struggling to get work following his conviction. He has never been a licensed contractor in Minnesota.

He, however, dismissed Olagbaju’s lawsuit as ‘frivolous’.

“Lawsuits are common in our industry and are so common, in fact, that many attorneys dedicate their entire practice to this specialty,” he said. “We are not immune to that reality.”

In November, KARE11 reported that Yussuf had been involved in a scheme to forge ship’s certificates, which he also refuted.

He told the Star Tribune that he accidentally passed along false information from his employer.

Yussuf bought the plot for Madinah Lakes in March and, through his company Zikar Holdings, made plans for homes, a football field, shops, restaurants, tennis courts and a 40,000 square meter mosque, among other things.

Reactions were mixed, with some locals expressing concern that the project could be exclusionary.

“What’s going to happen, of course, is that people are going to choose not to live there… This is almost segregation, not by design, but by choice,” local Luke Walter said at a community meeting. local media reported.

“That’s 1,800 people living a certain way of life in a community within a community, and history has shown us time and time again that this kind of division is harmful to a society.

‘We need organic integration. People should come here and be welcome to participate in the developments; everyone should be welcome to come and build a religious building here.”

Yussuf subsequently sued Lino Lakes, claiming his project was held up by anti-Muslim discrimination.

“We’ve seen hundreds of people show up at every city council meeting or planning meeting,” Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told me. CBS.

“And at those meetings, people have continually projected Islamophobic, anti-Muslim statements about why they don’t want this project to move forward,”

Hussein added that while the accusations against Yussuf are serious, the project is only receiving so much attention because of Islamophobia.

“I don’t think it would have mattered whether the developer had a past or not,” Hussein said. “I don’t think that was the reason they tried to stop this project.”

But other residents expressed concern that legitimate concerns about Yussuf’s background were being dismissed as Islamophobia.

Yussuf is also undeterred, despite the moratirum that came into effect in August.

“We plan to be part of the Lino Lakes community. We’re not going anywhere,” he said.

“We face these battles in every city we go to. It actually gives us the determination to make the development a reality.’

Minnesota has a large Muslim population, with many Somalis fleeing to the Land of 10,000 Lakes as civil war ravaged their homeland in the 1990s.