11 arrested in a gold smuggling racket
The Colombo North Police Special Investigation Unit Subday 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.
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. 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.
‘As agreed, a woman from Moratuwa and another two businessmen had arrived at a room of a five star hotel in Colombo for the business deal, According to the Police 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. 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.
Courtesy: Government News Portal
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Interesting! Who is the popular cricketer whose spouse got caught? Since our cricketers are just passengers in the ongoing IPL, hope this will not affect the performance of this particular cricketer if he is playing in IPL.