IRA Money Ties to Exchange Alleged

The outlawed Irish Republican Army has used the London Stock Exchange to launder millions of dollars collected by its racketeers in Northern Ireland, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

British investigators, working with police in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, have uncovered evidence of a sophisticated system for channeling IRA cash from Northern Ireland to the London stock market and back to IRA coffers, the newspaper said.

The IRA is waging a violent campaign to oust the British from Northern Ireland.

One British firm with an annual turnover of more than $360 million is suspected of having been an IRA front, laundering up to $54 million in the last eight years, the report said. It did not name the company.

Northern Ireland police questioned a man, held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, on Saturday in connection with illegal stock market deals with the IRA, the report said.