'London Tigers' involved in credit card scam - Toronto Police

by Walter Jayawardhana

Toronto Police said two Londoners connected with LTTE terrorists and arrested there, may have stolen information of thousands of credit cards of UK customers.

Arrested with two other Toronto accomplices the two Londoners Kirubakaran Selvanayagam Pillai (38) and Sethukavalar Saravanabhavan (35) of London are in police custody with two Toronto accomplices and face more than 300 charges, the Toronto police said.

A banned terrorist group in Canada and the United Kingdom, Toronto police said, the Tamil Tigers are suspected of being involved in this scam to collect money for violence in the Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka.

Police said the men are suspected of stolen thousands of credit card information of United Kingdom customers and stored in the memory sticks and computers taken into custody from them.

The Toronto Police said 373 charges have been collectively laid against the two Londoners and their two Toronto accomplices. Police identified the accomplices as Pratheepan Thambu, 22, Lojanand Srinandan, 27, both of the Toronto area.

Police said the four suspected Tamil Tigers were arrested after a routine traffic check in Toronto, just after the two Londoners had landed there on Thursday January 31. After the Police found 41 plastic gift cards in the car search warrants were executed at a hotel in Markham, a Toronto suburb and a Tamil house.

According to Police investigations, later they found, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tiger) paraphernalia, 80 more gift cards with UK customer credit card details, laptops, memory sticks, and other computer hardware and a pinhole camera device, suspected of being used in credit card frauds.

Police said they also found Canadian Dollars 25,000 in bank notes and receipts of money transfers in the United Kingdom.