Gold racket busted, 11 arrested
Suraj A Bandara and Wijayani Edirisinghe
The Colombo North Police Special Investigation Unit yesterday busted
a major gold racket and arrested 11 persons, including an ex- Police
superintendent, the wife of a popular cricketer and two Navy and Air
Force officers. The group was in possession of 100 kilogrammes of gold.
The Sri Lanka Army Intelligence Unit on a tip off made the arrest with
the help of a Police team led by DIG Vaas Gunawardena.
According to police investigations,the initial breakthrough was made
on May 3, when Police investigative officers disguised as buyers agreed
to purchase a kilo of gold for Rs. 5 million.
‘The rendezvous point for the deal was at a room of a five star hotel
in Colombo. As agreed, a woman from Moratuwa and another two businessmen
had arrived at the hotel for the business deal,’ Police said.
“The plan was to receive the money after selling gold at a place in
Homagama. Therefore, all buyers had been taken to the Homagama bus stand
by the racketeers. The buyers were then taken to a restaurant near
Parliament for a meeting with the ex-Police superintendent who was the
mastermind of the racket.
The ex-Police superintendent was accompanied by his two followers,
the Navy and Army personnel who then accompanied the buyers to a hotel
in Nugegoda to finalize the deal.
A person called Krishantha was scheduled to come there with the Gold
to Nugegoda but had failed to do so. The suspect, a frequent traveler to
the UK, had switched off his mobile phone when attempts were made to
contact him.
Police subsequently arrested 11 suspects in connection with the gold
smuggling racket. Police suspect the gold to be a part of the gold
recovered form the LTTE, during the last phase of the war and that it
may have been stolen and hidden for a future purpose as part of a
secretly operated money racket. Further investigations are in progress.
IP Upul Samarasinghe, Sis Sunil Priyantha, A.L.M. Hassan,W.A. Piyasiri,
I.P.G.Jayarathna, Sergeon Chandana, Constable Karunarathna, wimalarathna,
Nadana, Wijesinghe and Samapath and WPC Jeewa attended at the mission. |