A former U.S. official, speaking to the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on Tuesday, said there were serious concerns over educational institutions funneling money to religious movements, suggesting the U.S. Treasury and Justice Department cooperate against such criminal activities. While the Pennsylvania-based Gülen Movement was not referred to in name, the group has become the focus of federal investigations in the U.S. for such activities.In response to a question by committee member from Kentucky, Andy Barr, over the existence of such groups, former assistant secretary for international affairs (2005-2009) at the Treasury Department, Clay Lowery, said, "I've seen allegations of that there are companies in the Unites States that are doing educational services and that they are receiving some grants and that some of the money is syphoned off. Obviously, if anything like that is happening in a negative way, it should be looked into seriously and carefully investigated."The Gülen Movement, founded by the controversial imam, Fethullah Gülen, who is facing multiple arrest warrants and various charges from money laundering to establishing a criminal deep state organization, has encountered similar allegations before.Most recently The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the schools allegedly associated with the Gülen Movement were suspected of involvement in a $5 million fraud operation over accusations that they funneled the money from federal grants to Gülenists.The court records in the U.S. show that executives of the Concept Schools company, which runs a network of charter schools in the United States, schemed to transfer money from federal grants to companies affiliated with executives and at least $20,000 is suspected to have been transferred to a bank account in Turkey from the account of one of those companies.A court record attributed to a special agent from the Education Department's Inspector General's Office says Concept Schools directed large portions of E-rate program money away from the charter schools to "related vendors" who paid more than $5 million to several companies linked to the school executives.The FBI has recently launched an investigation into the conduct of Concept Schools, which operates 19 charter schools in several states. The school chain, owned and operated by Turkish nationals, had distanced itself from Gülenists. Though the FBI did not give details about the investigation, a U.S. official told Turkey's Anadolu Agency in October that "a white-collar crime investigation" into the school chain was underway.The investigation was started after a series of raids in June 2014 at schools and offices of the Concept Schools network in Illinois, Ohio and Indiana. The FBI had seized documents regarding the school chain's contracts, documents related to e-rate grants and documents related to money transfers. E-rate is a program by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that provides discounts to schools in the U.S. for acquiring affordable equipment for telecommunications and Internet access.According to its website, Concept Schools, founded in 2002, operate 17 schools in Ohio, four in Illinois, three in Missouri, three in Indiana and one school each in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. Overall, there are more than 140 schools in 26 states operated by groups linked to the Gülen Movement.A New York Times article from 2011 was one of the first in-depth articles on the issue, pointing out to dubious contracts to new companies with little experience awarded by charter schools. The article, focused on Gülen-linked schools in Texas, had questioned the spending of taxpayers' money by publicly financed schools, especially in awarding contracts to Turkish-owned businesses linked to the movement.