| Sometimes the FBI does everything right. |
Four of the defendants are alleged to have attempted to buy Russian shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles and guns for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from FBI undercover agents posing as black market arms dealers. Some of the others are accused of a conspiracy to pay state department officials up to $1m to have the Tamil Tigers name removed from the state department terrorist list, which bans it from fundraising, lobbying or buying equipment in America, and also of offering bribes in return for details of US intelligence on a charity suspected of being a front for the Tigers. The officials they allegedly attempted to bribe also turned out to be FBI undercover agents.
Six of the men were charged in a federal court in Brooklyn on Monday. Three more arrests were made in Buffalo, New York, and one each in Connecticut, California and Seattle. The accused are described as being "senior LTTE supporters" with close links with the group's leadership.
Gerald Del Piano, a lawyer for one of the defendants, Nachimuthu Socrates, told the Associated Press: "We plan to fully and vigorously contest the charges." Mr Socrates, an Indian-born engineer, was arrested at his home in Connecticut.
| Not too bright, this Socrates guy. |
| I'll bet that "SA-18" even looked real. |
Leslie Wiser, the FBI special agent-in-charge in Newark, New Jersey, said: "This weekend's operation has severely impaired the Tamil Tigers' ability to acquire funding and weapons for their ongoing terror operations in Sri Lanka."