Thai authorities provide unlimited support for the LTTE.

Where is KP?

LTTE – FARC Links Exposed ?

by Sri Lanka Guardian Bureau in Bangkok and London

(September 14, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) LTTE which took its formation since the July 1977 violence in Sri Lanka has stretched its operational base to an unprecedented international level. The section of the diaspora Tamil community sympathetic to its cause is giving valuable financial and operational assistance. Within the past few years sting operations against the LTTE clandestine activities resulted in scores of diaspora operatives of the LTTE being arrested in many countries.

Thailand has seen many Tamils being arrested for involvement with the LTTE. Some of them are detained indefinitely for engaging in credit card frauds for the LTTE. A group of Tamils arrested carrying hundreds of credit cards in the tourist centre Puket two years ago are still in remand.

The most interesting of the nicks was LTTE’s arms dealer KP. According to one of daily news papers in Singapore: ‘On Sept 10, 2007, Kumaran – or KP, the chief procurer of arms of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam – was believed by many, including the Sri Lankan government, to have been arrested in Bangkok. However, while in Thai custody KP allegedly "disappeared".

The Thai authorities by letting loose a big nick like KP (n/a K Pathmanathan or K P Nathan) is playing silly game by its heavy handedness towards the other small time operatives.
The Thai newspaper identified KP as someone equivalent Victor Bout. Victor Bout according to the news is a ‘a 41-year-old Russian businessman who inspired the character Nicholas Cage played in the 2005 film Lord of War, was closing a deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in a five-star hotel’. In a covert operation carried out by the Drug Enforcement Agency Bout was arrested in the City of Angels together with Chchta Rajan and K P Nathan.

The news revealing about Chchta Rajan: ‘In 2002, Indian underworld don Chhota Rajan was shot in his Bangkok apartment. And in a scene that could be inspired by a Bollywood movie, the wounded gangster, held in a Bangkok private hospital, escaped by climbing out the window using knotted bed sheets’

KP is said to have unlimited access to the Thai military authorities. When LTTE delegation headed by Anton Balasingam was in Bangkok whilst some delegations members were touting in the red light districts during free time, one member was taken by the Thai army to a secret location to meet KP. The location was a tea boutique somewhere miles away in a village surrounded by jungle. This explains the influence of LTTE in Thailand.

"Bangkok is a logistics centre and air hub, there is widespread corruption, there are many ways to get out of the country, and it is a centre for counterfeit currency and fake passports," an analyst familiar with security issues and intelligence circles told the Media. Corruption is so endemic that LTTE has bribed the officials to enjoy free movement in Thailand.

Just before KP got into trouble in Thailand, he was summarily removed by the LTTE from his position as arms procurer on the grounds of financial impropriety. Predeep Master replaced him. But this was a major mistake as operations of Predeep Master were so clumsy that many of his operatives fell into the hands of the authorities in many countries. The sting operation against the LTTE procuring agents by the FBI in USA two years ago exposed how vulnerable the LTTE was with the introduction Predeep Master. The LTTE had to eat the humble pie and reinstate KP as its procurer.

In the sting operations by the FBI the newly inducted LTTE procurers were caught like flies easily falling victims to the cobwebs.- Sri Lanka Guardian