Almost a quarter of the donations to the ‘Freedom Convoy’ came from the US

Nearly a quarter of the millions of dollars the “Freedom Convoy” raised last winter came from American donors.

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For the first time, a detailed picture of the money donated to the cause of the protesters who have paralyzed Ottawa for three weeks, among other things, was made public Thursday during a commission of inquiry into emergency measures.

Commission attorney Daniel Shepherd revealed, among other things, that Tamara Licht, one of the main organizers of the convoy, received a $1 million deposit into her personal account on February 2 behind a GoFundMe site that raised more than $10 million. Before being suspended.

Overall, M.^me Leach received more than $1.4 million in her bank account, and she was only able to use $26,000 before TD Bank froze her accounts.

Overall, the sums collected by the convoy were paid partly into the personal accounts of the organizers, but also into an organization set up in an emergency to manage the funds collected.

However, most of the money was never used by protesters and organizers because of court orders from the province of Ontario that blocked access to those funds as the convoy shut down the city center.

Other campaigns launched after GoFundMe’s suspension also raised a lot of money, this time with massive help from American donors.

Two campaigns launched on the GiveSendGo platform raised more than $10 million, of which $4.8 million came from the United States.

In total, about $5.7 million of the $24 million raised by the convoy was donated by Americans, according to the commission’s investigation.

On January 27, 2022, the day before the truckers arrived, the Ottawa resident launched a bitcoin fundraiser that allowed him to collect 22 bitcoins, worth about a million at the time, according to lawyer Daniel Shepherd.

Envelopes containing instructions on how to access the money via mobile phone were distributed to 100 truckers in the convoy on February 17. Total value $800,000.

Testimony from three organizers, Benjamin Dichter, James Buder and Tamara Leach, is being heard by the commission today.