Sean O`Neill
A massive credit card sting involving up to 200 British petrol stations was said yesterday to have been organised by Tamil Tiger terrorists.

Millions of pounds have been taken from credit and debit cards after their owners used them to pay for goods at petrol stations where skimming machinery had been fitted.

The guerrilla group was accused of defrauding British drivers to fund its campaign of violence against the Government of Sri Lanka.

Police are investigating incidents at about 200 independently owned petrol stations. The inquiries began in Hull and spread to Leeds, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Norfolk, Peterborough, Bristol and Nottingham.

The fraudsters used machinery to skim data from credit and debit cards, which was transferred to bogus cards.

Card details cloned in Britain have been used to obtain funds in Thailand. Police found that the common link was the involvement of Sri Lankan gangs.

Skimming has been used to raise money for Islamist terrorists in Algeria, Kashmir and Chechnya.

Maxwell Keegal, of the High Commission, said that terrorists lent asylum-seekers money to set up petrol stations and newsagents, then forced them to use skimming machines. Often the LTTE will use threats against the people or their families in Sri Lanka, he said. We do not want the good name of the Sri Lankan people to be tarnished. I don`t want people to think all Sri Lankan shopkeepers are crooks.

Humberside Police, which is investigating several reports of fraud, would not confirm a link with the Tamil Tigers.

There are about 175,000 Sri Lankans in Britain, the majority of them Tamils who have fled the fighting at home.

The Tamil Tigers have been waging a guerrilla war since the 1980s, seeking an independent Tamil state. Tamil terrorism is rooted in conflict between the Tamils, who are mostly Hindu, and the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese, who predominate in the Sri Lankan Government.