PANB seizes 35kgs of heroin at Aluthkade

Yasaratne GAMAGE

The Police Anti Narcotics Bureau ( PANB) after three months of thorough investigations seized 35 kilo grammes of heroin from a house in Aluthkade on Thursday. The seized heroin haul is alleged to have been imported by a famous drug kingpin. Investigations revealed that the heroin haul had been imported from Pakistan in August concealed in water pumps.

The suspects had hidden the heroin in 132 amateurs of 222 water pumps. Each water pump had 250 grammes of heroin concealed in it.

The PANB commenced investigations on September 18 and set up a good surveillance network of those who had suspicious whereabouts to arrest the country’s leading drug dealers.

The PANB’s hard work paid dividends when on November 11, when two Pakistanis and a consort of the local drug lord were arrested with two kilos of heroin in their possession,smuggled to the country through the two Pakistanis. This is the first time the PANB detected a haul of drus imported in such a manner.

In early September , acting on representations made by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to the Attorney General’s Department, the Colombo High Court froze the property, and seized the vehicles and cash estimated at Rs 185 million belonging to the main suspect in this mass scale drug scam.’

The CID also arrested the main suspect’s wife, who returned from India using a forged passport recently.