The phrase "was a front for" is a perfectly correct and usable phrase in written English.
Example: The small cafe was a front for a drug ring.
D'Avanzo was a hoodlum with Mob connections, and his establishment was a front for various rackets.
It was tough to know which part of his personality was a front for the other.
The FBI concluded it was a front for raising funds for the MEK.
It could be his source was a front for the Russians.
He ran a bar that was a front for assorted illegal activities, we're told, and has logged time in prison.
They reinvigorated old claims that the organization was a front for racial genocide and that Sanger viewed blacks as undesirable.
It has outlawed Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which was a front for the terrorist group that nurtured the Mumbai attackers.
In 2008, the government first filed a case against Assa, claiming it was a front for Bank Melli.
WHEN he found out that his new employer was a front for the CIA, Isaac Patch was furious.
In London, an exiled nephew of the president claimed the conference was a front for Islamist extremism.
Israel, contending that the foundation was a front for Hamas, closed it and four other charities in May 1997.
