.....Mrs. Mauskopf said the LTTE has "covertly operated within the United States" for years, drawing on the country's financial resources and technological advances to further its war of terror. She said the organization had undertaken a major worldwide campaign to raise money for its offensive against the Sri Lankan government.
In Maryland, Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa, a Sri Lankan national, was sentenced in January to 57 months in prison on charges of conspiracy to provide support to the LTTE and the attempted exportation of arms and munitions. In a sting operation, he and three others negotiated to buy a laundry list of weapons from an undercover business in Baltimore.
A criminal complaint said Varatharasa conspired to export $900,000 worth of machine guns, ammunition, surface-to-air missiles, night-vision goggles and other military weapons to Sri Lanka. A co-conspirator, Haniffa Osman, who lives in Singapore, even traveled to Baltimore to test fire some of the weapons at a range in Havre de Grace with undercover U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.....
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