A 51-year-old woman has been arrested with 67 litres and 500 millilitres of illicit liquor during a raid in the Wennappuwa area, police said.
The raid was carried out on Saturday by officers of the Wennappuwa Police Station, acting on a tip-off about an illicit liquor operation, according to Ada Derana.
Officers seized 90 bottles holding a combined 67.5 litres of illegal liquor. The suspect is a resident of Nainamadama. Wennappuwa Police are conducting further investigations.
Wennappuwa and Nainamadama are in the Puttalam District of North Western Province, on the coastal strip north of Negombo. Police did not say whether the liquor was being distilled locally or brought in from elsewhere, and no court date was given.
A recurring pattern of coastal raids
The seizure is the latest in a steady run of illicit liquor cases along the western coastal belt, most of them following tip-offs to divisional police units.
Police arrested a 53-year-old man from Ja-Ela this month with 200 bottles of illicit liquor in the Muthurajawela marshland at Mahabage, in an operation run by the Walana Central Anti Vice Striking Force. In July, a 32-year-old from Kochchikade was detained with 56 litres packed into 75 bottles in the Dalupotha area of the Negombo Police Division.
Production sites have also been targeted. Two men were arrested in August when police raided an illicit liquor plant near the Karadiyana dump on the southern edge of Colombo, where officers recovered 135 litres of finished liquor and roughly 16,000 litres of fermented wash awaiting distillation.
Illicit liquor — commonly known as kasippu — is distilled outside the licensed excise system, carries no quality control, and deprives the state of duty revenue.
Ada Derana was the only verified newsroom carrying this report when the article was filed at midday on Sunday.
