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| Saturday, 24 January 2004 |
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Inferior tea racket busted after arrest of five by Sarath Malalasekera The Colombo Crimes Division (CCD) has uncovered a massive racket involving the export of inferior tea not fit for human consumption following the arrest of five suspects alleged to have been in possession of over 100 kilos of low quality tea. Investigations directed by CCD Director Senior SP Sarath Lugoda said the suspects, now in remand custody, with the knowledge of several leading businessmen from the hill- country used to collect the dust and the sweepings of tea from tea factories and brought it to Colombo and introduced several chemicals into them and exported them as quality tea to others countries. The detection of the fraud helped Sri Lankan tea exporters to educate and assure the world tea market that in future no adulterated tea will be exported from Sri Lanka to any country, Lugoda said. The five suspects produced before Colombo Additional Magistrate Ranjan Dissanayake were remanded until February 3. A special police team has been deployed to arrest the five businessmen from the hill-country believed to be the king-pins behind the tea racket. The tea taken into custody from the suspects' possession will be forwarded to the Government Analyst to obtain a report in connection with the chemicals used by the suspects to make the inferior quality tea as quality tea. The inferior tea was detected at several warehouses in Grandpass, Orugodawatta, Pettah and Daulagoda in the Kandy district. CCD ASP Ravindra Karavita, Chief Inspector Nuwan Wedasinghe, OIC, CCD and a special team attached to the CCD are assisting in the investigations. |
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