Sri Lanka Police have arrested 531,116 people in connection with narcotics offences since the current government took office on 23 September 2024, according to figures released by the force.
Crystal methamphetamine, known locally as Ice, accounted for the largest share. Police said 198,050 suspects were taken into custody in Ice-related cases and 5,651 kilograms and 110 grams of the drug were seized over the period.
Heroin operations produced 165,974 arrests and the recovery of 3,423 kilograms and 610 grams. A further 7,376 people were held over the possession and trafficking of Kush and hashish, from whom 1,720 kilograms and 517 grams were recovered, while cocaine cases led to 307 arrests and the seizure of 308 kilograms and 557 grams.
Police also reported a combined 26,743 kilograms and 385 grams of cannabis and Kerala cannabis seized, though no separate arrest figure was given for that category.
Pharmaceutical narcotics formed a substantial part of the haul. Police records list 4,253,057 narcotic capsules and 7,942,646 narcotic pills taken into custody, in operations involving 11,713 suspects.
Where the numbers do and do not add up
The categories police itemised account for 383,420 arrests — about 72 per cent of the stated total. The remaining 147,696 are not broken down in the released figures, and the absence of a cannabis arrest count is the largest single gap, given that cannabis produced by far the heaviest seizure by weight.
The 531,116 total also covers a much longer window than the figure police last put on the record. LankaNewz reported on 31 July that the “Ratama Ekata” national anti-drug operation had produced 239,384 arrests in nine months, including 995 major traffickers and 743 children aged 14 to 18. The new figure spans roughly 23 months of the government’s tenure rather than the operation alone.
Set against each other, the two disclosures suggest the campaign has intensified sharply. If the operation’s seizures are counted within the wider total, the nine months of Ratama Ekata delivered about 66 per cent of all heroin seized under this government, 47 per cent of the Ice and 95 per cent of the cocaine — the last figure implying that cocaine interdiction is almost entirely a phenomenon of the past year.
Police did not publish an updated count of major traffickers, child arrests or asset seizures alongside the new total, and gave no estimated street value for the quantities listed. The July briefing had valued nine months of heroin, Ice and cocaine seizures at roughly Rs. 102 billion, and reported 396 kilograms intercepted at the border by Customs under the same campaign.
No other verified newsroom had carried the updated national figure at the time of writing.
