Scotland Yard on track of suspected Tiger siphoning scam

By Asif Fuard

Britain’s elite criminal investigators in Scotland Yard have begun hunting for suspected Tamil Tiger operatives in Britain in the backdrop of last week’s revelation of Tiger operatives being involved in an organised filling station credit card scam.

At least 40 Sri Lankans owning filling stations in several counties were questioned by Scotland Yard detectives in connection with the scam.

The local police of Edinburgh, Norwich, Bury St Edmunds, Peterborough, Nottingham, Leeds, Bristol and Hull are looking into complaints made by motorists who had found thousands of pounds missing from their bank accounts.

The prime suspect who operated in the city of Hull, the most affected area is yet to be arrested. Inspector Paul Walton, of Humberside Police who is probing the scam in Hull told The Sunday Times over the telephone that the investigation has been taken up at a higher level as it seems to be connected with an organised group.

“All the suspects involved are Tamils. It is clear that this was well organised and it was done very professionally. This was undetected for some time. But now we have managed to make a breakthrough,” he said.

An official from Scotland Yard who spoke on grounds of anonymity told The Sunday Times in a telephone conversation from his headquarters in London that their investigators have ascertained evidence relating to Tamil Tiger operatives involvement in the credit card scam to finance the organisation to purchase arms. “Upon the information we gathered from the Tamil filling shed owners we questioned the other day we have managed to arrest eight Tamils whom we believe are Tamil Tiger rebels. We have detained them for further questioning,” he said.

“We have a separate team looking into Tamil gangs in London which are mainly affiliated to the rebels. We have traced their bank accounts in which a few of them have millions of pounds. We have now frozen their accounts and are probing for others involved in the scam,” he said.

Around 200 of Britain’s 9,500 filling stations which have Tamil owners or Tamils working are thought to have been hit by the scam. Scotland Yard is also trying to ascertain the channels of the money being transferred and is also probing if the money had been laundered for Tiger activities in Sri Lanka through Tiger front organisations.

Scotland Yard has gathered details of bank statements relating to some of the filling station owners who are now evading arrest after being involved in donating thousands of pounds every year to the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) in London whose monies were said to have later been transferred to Sri Lanka before it had got de-listed by the UK Charities Commission. Investigations also are underway about other cases of extortion.On January 5, 2006 Mr. Subramaniam Sivakumar, a Tamil businessman who operated a grocery shop called Apna Bazaar on Willesden Lane in north-west London was killed by a suspected Tamil gang bringing the issue to the limelight in Britain. The Police later found in his journals that he had been making regular payments of between sterling pounds 5,000 and 10, 000 to the Tamil gang identified as the ‘boys’ which later investigations revealed were Tamil Tiger operatives in London. The investigators believe his failure to make one of these regular payments sealed his fate. A spokesperson for the British High Commission in Colombo told The Sunday Times that he could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

“The activity appears to be well organised and is carried out at an international basis. There is no definite link to say the LTTE is involved as the investigation is ongoing,” he said.

However a similar scam had taken place in Norway early this month in which 16 persons including Tamil Tiger operatives in Norway were arrested for possessing fake credit cards.