The “Freedom Convoy” can still benefit from foreign aid to maintain its occupation of the streets of Ottawa, to the great despair of the authorities. New alternative funding sources, such as a cryptocurrency fund, have now exceeded the sums raised by the defunct first fundraising campaign.
“We are tackling financing, refueling and logistics [de] this illegal and dangerous protest,” Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly said Thursday.
He said convoy supporters flooded Ottawa’s 911 service with unnecessary calls Wednesday night, disrupting the emergency line. A “significant” number of these calls came from the United States.
For more than a week, the police chief has repeated his concerns about the significant foreign support available to angry truckers blocking part of the city center of the federal capital.
Despite the withdrawal of a first crowdfunding campaign by GoFundMe last week, a second launched on the rival site GiveSendGo raised in a few days an even larger amount, the equivalent of 10.7 million Canadian dollars. The Ontario government issued a court order Thursday night preventing anyone from accessing the money.
Cryptocurrency funds
The authorities are not at the end of their sentences. The organizers of the convoy also set up another fund, in cryptocurrency this time, which had accumulated nearly 900,000 dollars at the time of this writing.
“We have a very clear fundraising objective, and that is to receive donations from abroad from people who want to support the convoy, and demonstrate their commitment to freedom,” an organizer said Wednesday during a briefing. press disseminated on the Web and to which The duty was not invited.
He provided the example of a doctor in Nigeria who allegedly contributed financially to keep Ottawa streets blocked. “It’s a global movement. It’s not just Canadian or American! »
Lawyer and cybersecurity analyst Ritesh Kotak, who advises police forces in Ontario, believes these new crowdfunding methods are making it harder for authorities trying to investigate extremist groups. “You can hardly follow the money if there isn’t any, in the traditional sense. It adds a certain level of complexity for law enforcement. »
Contrary to popular belief, he adds, it is possible to trace the owners of cryptocurrency assets and even to carry out seizures, “but it is extremely complex, and it requires a certain level of expertise”. .
The question of the financing of the “Freedom Convoy” was invited in a parliamentary committee in Ottawa, Thursday, where was invited the deputy director of intelligence of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada, Barry MacKillop. He clarified that crowdfunding platforms are not included in the current money laundering and terrorist financing law. The banking institutions that send them funds, on the other hand, must report suspicious transactions.
The Ottawa police chief says he is able to put an end to the occupation of his city center, as long as the province and the federal government provide him with the approximately 1,800 police officers or civilians requested as reinforcements. He has been promised more than 250 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers, and he expects “announcements very soon” for more resources. In an email, the office of the Solicitor General of Ontario indicates that local police services “have the resources and the authority to keep their community safe”.