Canadian card scam: Tiger link probed
A routine traffic stop in Toronto has sparked a widening police probe
of a debit-card fraud that may have funnelled funds to the LTTE from
Canada.
After a visiting motorist failed to halt at a stop sign Monday,
police in Scarborough’s 42 Division searched his rented vehicle and
found plastic cards carrying the debit data of bank customers in the
United Kingdom.
Now four men face multiple charges of attempting to loot bank
accounts in Britain.
The four - two of them visitors from Britain and two of them Toronto
residents - are all of Sri Lankan origin.
For now, the alleged scam is being treated as a relatively
straightforward effort to steal tens of thousands of dollars from
British bank-card holders via the international network of bank-teller
machines.
But lead investigator Detective Scott Whittemore said yesterday that
in visits to two Scarborough homes, police discovered calendars and
posters promoting and lauding the LTTE, a group outlawed in Canada.
Providing it with material support has been illegal since April of
last year, when Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day announced that the
Tigers had been added to Ottawa’s list of proscribed terrorist groups.
The United States and the European Union have similarly blacklisted
the organisation.
Police are investigating whether any of the four men has financial
ties to the Tigers.
If the alleged fraud was intended to benefit the Tigers, it would not
be the first time crime-derived funds have been funnelled to the group,
but such connections are always hard to prove, Det. Whittemore said.
The four men were arrested when their rented car ran a stop sign and
was examined. Police discovered 42 plastic bank cards in the car, and
dozens more cards were found when police later raided a Brampton hotel
and a home on Scarborough’s Ellesmere Road.
And while it was unclear how much money was actually stolen, $25,000
in Canadian $20 bills was found in the raids, along with two laptop
computers, computer memory sticks and hardware, pinhole cameras and
passports and travel documents.The four men will appear in court
tomorrow for a bail hearing.
The Globe and Mail
|