Six women, including three Thai nationals, have been arrested during a raid on an alleged brothel operating under the guise of a massage centre in Bambalapitiya, Newswire reported.
Officers of the Colombo South Division Crime Investigation Bureau carried out the raid at a premises located in Ocean Tower, Bambalapitiya, on June 20 following information received by authorities. A woman suspected of managing the establishment and five women allegedly engaged in prostitution were taken into custody and handed over to the Bambalapitiya Police for further investigation.
The three local suspects, aged 27, 35 and 38, are residents of Ellagawa, Kalawana and Galgamuwa respectively. The three foreign nationals are Thai women aged 34, 41 and 43.
Bambalapitiya Police are conducting further investigations into the incident.
The arrests place a fresh international-trafficking angle on the Colombo South Division’s recent enforcement work, with three Thai nationals among those held in a city-centre premises operating as a front. Foreign-national involvement in alleged prostitution rings has surfaced repeatedly in recent months: a Sri Lankan Buddhist clergyman was arrested in Boston as part of a human-trafficking sting, and the Dubai-Sudda overseas-jobs scam case and the Romania Rainbow Garments fraud probed by CID both surfaced trafficking-recruitment networks operating in or routed through Sri Lanka.
The Bambalapitiya raid is the latest in a series of multi-suspect arrests by the Colombo South Division this month.
