ED grills LTTE supporter in Puzhal for devising scam in 2019
The 51-year-old woman had obtained Indian documents with fake agreements and stayed in Anna Nagar to run ops
Directorate of Enforcement (IANS)
CHENNAI: In an effort to unravel financial links to the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the sleuths from the Directorate of Enforcement, on Monday, grilled Letchumanan Mary Franciska, a Sri Lankan woman jailed in the Puzhal Prison, for her alleged involvement in a sophisticated plot to siphon off funds for the LTTE.
The interrogation proceeded after obtaining the required permission from the NIA (National Investigation Agency) court.
The development is an indication that the federal agency is digging into alleged financial networks supporting the banned militant outfit.
The 51-year-old Franciska is already under investigation by the NIA for her links to the LTTE and is detained at the Puzhal Women's Prison.
The current probe by the ED is directly linked to her original audacious scheme for which she was arrested in October 2021.
Franciska was intended to reach Mumbai via Bengaluru to gain control of a bank account belonging to a UK-based individual, which held Rs 42 crore at the Fort branch of the Indian Overseas Bank. She was arrested by the Tamil Nadu Q Branch police at the Chennai airport.
According to the authorities, though she is a Canadian resident, Franciska arrived in Chennai under her Sri Lankan passport in December 2019 and managed to obtain an Indian passport and voter ID with fake lease agreements and utility documents. She had been staying in the city's Anna Nagar area.
Franciska's first attempt at cracking the IOB account was when she was alerted by LTTE sympathisers about the dormant account. She attempted to hijack the account online by obtaining a new SIM card under the account holder's name using forged papers.
When that failed, she devised a more elaborate plan with a set of fake documents to pose as the legal heir of the account holder. According to the FIR filed by the NIA, Franciska's goal was to obtain the amount from the dormant account and transfer the sum to various accounts of LTTE sympathisers in India and other countries for the outfit's "rehabilitation" and regrouping activities.
The ED's petition to the court stated that interrogating Mary Franciska is crucial to identifying all individuals and networks involved in these illegal money transfers. Accepting the plea, the court has granted investigators permission to question her in prison for two days.
Furthermore, the court has authorised the use of laptops, printers, and other electronic devices during the interrogation to facilitate the process.
