Nov 19, Colombo: Sri Lanka's Central Bank yesterday announced that it had confiscated the funds held by the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), a known LTTE front organization. The Bank said a sum of 71 million rupees of TRO money was now forfeited to the state.

The Sri Lankan government had already frozen the assets of TRO in August 2006 under the Financial Transactions Reporting Act and the Convention on the Suppression of Terrorist Financing Act.

The government charged that the money received by TRO from various donors for humanitarian projects were, according to intelligence reports, mainly used to finance terrorist activities.

The Central Bank cautioned the public not to have any financial transactions or any other links with the TRO as investigations are yet in progress to trace and forfeit any further funds and assets belonging to the TRO and any involvement including any financial connection with a proscribed organization is a criminal offence.

The United States Department of the Treasury designated the TRO as a terror supporting network in November 2007 and froze all assets held by the TRO and its designees in U.S. territories, and formally prohibited U.S. citizens from transacting with the TRO or its members.

In 2005 the British Charity Commission removed the TRO’s UK charitable status saying that it wasn’t able to satisfactorily account the application of its funds.