Fraud Bureau busts human smuggling racket

Yasaratne Gamage

The Colombo Fraud Bureau busted a human smuggling racket with the arrest of six persons including two ‘sub agents’.

The Police raided a lodge at Kotahena and arrested the suspects when one of the ‘sub agents’ was preparing to hand over four persons to the main agent to be smuggled to Australia. Each person was charged Rs 1.5 million.

The would be illegal immigrants who were residents of Jaffna,Vishwamadu and Kalmunai are ex- LTTE cadres, investigations revealed.

They were attempting to flee to Christmas Islands, Australia .The other two were ‘sub agents’ in the smuggling racket.

The Police found that they had departed on another boat with 70 illegal immigrants to Australia on March 21.

The Police have commenced a search operation to apprehend the two main suspects behind the racket, Parama Shiwam Chanda Kumar and Indan Rupanadan.

The six suspects were remanded until April 10.