Two Chinese nationals have been arrested in Colpetty with 12,000 cigarettes allegedly imported without payment of customs duties, police said.
The arrests were made during a raid on the night of August 18 by officers attached to the Colpetty Police Station, acting on information received. The suspects are aged 31 and 34.
Colpetty Police are conducting further investigations into the case.
Context
The seizure is the latest in a run of cigarette-smuggling cases reported this month. Most have been detected at Bandaranaike International Airport rather than in Colombo itself: a 22-year-old was arrested at BIA with 10,800 smuggled cigarettes on August 16, and earlier in the month a Chinese woman was held at the airport with cigarettes valued at about Rs. 3 million.
Imported cigarettes carry high excise and customs duties in Sri Lanka, and the margin between duty-paid and duty-evaded stock is what makes the trade profitable. Authorities have not said what the Colpetty consignment was worth, how it entered the country, or whether the two arrests are linked to any of the airport detections.
Ada Derana reported the arrests; no other verified newsroom had carried the case at the time of writing. An earlier Kollupitiya cigarette arrest involving a Chinese national, reported in May, was a separate and unrelated incident involving a single suspect and a far smaller quantity.
