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World Tamil Movement (WTM), a Toronto-based
group has wired more than $3-million to
overseas bank accounts, some of them linked
to the LTTE, before it was shut down by the
government in June for alleged terrorist
financing, said an RCMP report released
yesterday. The report, marked "Secret" but
unsealed by order of a Federal Court judge,
provides the first detailed look at the
banking activities of the accused of
bankrolling LTTE.
Most of the money, $1.9-million, went to
an account at the Bumiputra Commerce Bank in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that the RCMP report
says "is utilized as a vehicle to forward
money to the LTTE from Canada."
According to National Post the 83-page
financial report is the fruit of two years
of analysis of banking records seized by
Canadian anti-terrorism police who are
investigating a financial network run by
supporters of LTTE that allegedly raised
money in Canada to buy arms for the
terrorists.
"The bank records seized ... demonstrate
that the World Tamil Movement has developed
an elaborate machine like entity that moves
throughout the Greater Toronto Area
collecting funds with extreme proficiency,"
the police report said.
Stockwell Day, the Public Safety
Minister, announced on June 16 that his
government had added the WTM to Ottawa's
official list of terrorist groups, alongside
the likes of Al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The WTM is the first Canadian community
group to be listed.
The Minister has accused the WTM of
transferring money to LTTE bank accounts in
Sri Lanka, but the RCMP's Feburuary 1, 2008,
financial report paints a more detailed
picture of a complex network made up of 20
Canadian bank accounts.
Five banks held the accounts: Toronto
Dominion, Bank of Nova Scotia, Royal Bank,
CIBC and the National Bank of Canada. The
Canadian account holders wired money
regularly to accounts in Malaysia,
Singapore, the United Kingdom and uncleared
areas in Sri Lanka.
RCMP Corporal Deanna Hill, the author of
the police report, wrote that the WTM's
financial set-up was "congruent with the
money laundering techniques often employed
by organized crime groups.
"I also believe that the number of
accounts alone demonstrate that the World
Tamil Movement has utilized the Canadian
banking system to raise funds in a manner
that is best suited to financing the
terrorist activities of the LTTE."
The RCMP began investigating the LTTEs'
Canadian fundraising network in 2002,
focusing on the WTM's head office in Toronto
and its smaller branch offices in Montreal
and Vancouver. Police raided the Toronto and
Montreal offices in 2006.
Police seized letters from the LTTE
leadership thanking Canada for its
donations, explaining how the money had been
used to purchase weapons, and asking for
more. But much of the police evidence
appears to have come from a study of bank
accounts held by the WTM and its officers.
The Project Osaluki financial report
claims the WTM's most lucrative fundraising
method was a pre-authorized payment program,
in which the group persuaded hundreds of its
supporters to sign forms allowing money to
be withdrawn from their bank accounts each
month.
The WTM took in up to $763,000 a year
using the payment scheme. On a single day in
2005, the WTM withdrew $63,528 from 1,582
bank accounts. "It is obvious from the
amounts collected with this method that the
pre-authorized payment scheme is effective,
timely and spares valued resources," said
the RCMP report.
Most of the forms had been signed in
Canada but police also interviewed witnesses
who said they had signed them at LTTE
checkpoints in Sri Lanka. "Upon their return
to Canada, these persons were visited by
representatives of the World Tamil Movement
to exact the collection of the monthly
stipend," Cpl. Hill wrote.
In addition, the WTM made money through
bake sales, car washes, newspaper sales,
merchandise sales and festivals, the report
says. "To date, the total amount of Canadian
dollars that have been forwarded to accounts
internationally from accounts controlled by
the World Tamil Movement in Canada is
$3,101,803.33."
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