Money to bribe a U.S. official - traced during an international anti-terrorism probe aimed at the Tamil Tigers - came from Montreal, the FBI said Thursday.
TORONTO - Money to bribe a U.S. official - traced during an international anti-terrorism probe aimed at the Tamil Tigers - came from Montreal, the FBI said Thursday.
And two of the men arrested in the bribery case are former Montreal residents, adding more Canadian connections to a widening probe that has seen six other men from Canada arrested on charges of aiding a foreign terrorist organization, including money laundering, smuggling equipment and people, and trying to purchase anti-aircraft missiles, machine-guns and other military equipment.
Tens of thousands of dollars from Montreal were earmarked as a bribe for a U.S. federal agent who was posing as a corrupt immigration officer, pretending to allow Tamils to illegally enter the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation alleged in a sworn criminal complaint filed in a New York court.
The money's path was tracked as part of a large sting operation mounted by the FBI against alleged operatives of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly called the Tamil Tigers, an organization banned as a terrorist group on both sides of the border.
So far a total of 14 people have been taken into custody in the joint FBI-RCMP probe.
First, three Canadians of Tamil descent were accused in New York City on the weekend of trying to buy military hardware after driving across the Canada-U.S. border to meet with a man they believed was a black-market arms dealer, but who was a federal agent, and a Tamil man, who co-operated with U.S. authorities in their probe.
Three other Canadian residents were arrested this week by the RCMP in Ontario, including an engineering graduate from the University of Waterloo who is accused of arranging student couriers to smuggle equipment into Sri Lanka to further the Tamil Tiger's cause.
A third set of criminal complaints unsealed in a New York court, against three people arrested in Buffalo as part of the FBI's probe, now reveal further Canadian links.
Thileepan Patpanathan and his brother, Sujeepan Patpanathan, moved to Buffalo from Montreal about six months ago, said Rodney O. Personius, a Buffalo lawyer who represented one of the men in court.
They lived in Montreal for about three years, he said.
The Patpanathan brothers are charged along with Logeswaran Krishnamoorthy of knowingly conspiring to bribe a public official to illegally bring other people from Sri Lanka. They were caught in a sting operation using the same Tamil informant.
An agent was introduced to co-conspirators as an officer with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service who, for a fee, could help smuggle foreigners into the U.S. The man was, in fact, a federal agent and the meetings were recorded, the FBI said.
An offer of $6,000 US per person smuggled was offered, authorities alleged.
The Patpanathan brothers were among the immigrants smuggled into the country, the FBI said. They then allegedly worked with the undercover agent to arrange for others to join them.
When the Patpanathan brothers were facing deportation, a further bribe of $3,000 US was offered to the agent to intervene, according to the FBI.
The men allegedly said the money was being sent first from Sri Lanka to Montreal and then on to the United States.
The FBI said the case is intimately tied to the other cases involving the Tamil Tigers.
''There are a variety of ways one can provide material support. It is not just sending weapons over there - it's sending money, moving people, giving aid to a terrorist group in whatever way they can manage to,'' said Special Agent Steve Siegal, a spokesman for the FBI.
In April, Canadian authorities raided the Toronto and Montreal offices of the World Tamil Movement, alleging it had illegally raised money for the Tigers. Those raids came days after the Conservative government added the Tigers to Ottawa's list of outlawed terror groups.
Also on Thursday, the Canadian Tamil Congress requested meetings with federal justice officials and the head of the RCMP in a bid to distance itself from the terror-related arrests of six Tamil-Canadians, one of whom used to work for the CTC.
''We are deeply concerned at the allegations and the media publicity aris(ing) from the arrests as (they do) not reflect appropriately on the hard working, law-abiding members of the Tamil-Canadian population,'' the Tamil community organization said in a letter to RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli.
''The allegations involve (a) few individuals who happen to be Tamil. We stress that nothing more, and nothing less should be derived from that.''
David Poopalapillai, a national spokesman for the CTC, confirmed that Sahilal Sabaratnam, 27, one of the Canadians arrested Saturday in Long Island, N.Y., was the CTC's communications director for ''about a year'' in 2005.
''He was very inactive during that time,'' Poopalapillai said.
Poopalapillai said the CTC underwent a ''revamping'' in April and that most of the group's former executives were replaced.
National Post with file from Kelly Patrick
© (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=f14acf77-3dbf-4aca-bf58-8f1e7c77a8f2&k=52933
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=f14acf77-3dbf-4aca-bf58-8f1e7c77a8f2&k=52933
No comments:
Post a Comment