Five people, including two women, have been arrested with narcotics in four raids carried out at a single housing complex in Mount Lavinia, NewsFirst reported.
The raids were conducted jointly by the Police Special Task Force, Organized Crime Special Operations teams, Sri Lanka Police and the Army.
Officers seized 7.840 grams of kush, 32.130 grams of hashish, 20 pills of a narcotic referred to as “Phil” and 4.280 grams of heroin. The STF also took Rs. 108,400 said to be proceeds of drug trafficking.
The suspects are aged between 20 and 47 and all live in the same housing complex. They and the seized drugs have been handed to Mount Lavinia Police for further investigation.
The shooting link
Among those arrested is a motorcyclist who, according to NewsFirst, had accompanied a gunman in an attempt to shoot a man in Dehiwala on 4 August.
That date and description match the attempted shooting of a bakery owner near the Dahanayake Grounds in Dehiwala on the evening of Tuesday 4 August, in which the attacker’s weapon failed to fire and the intended victim wrestled it away from him. A 23-year-old suspect was arrested over that attack on 10 August.
Two caveats apply. NewsFirst does not name the case it is referring to, so the connection rests on the date and location alone. And the original reports described a single masked man who arrived on a motorcycle and fled on foot after being disarmed — not a rider and a separate gunman. NewsFirst’s account implies two people were involved. Neither version has been reconciled by any outlet.
Update (September 13): the Daily Mirror places the shooting in Nedimala
The Daily Mirror, filing later on Sunday, confirms the operation and adds the location NewsFirst withheld: the suspect is linked to a shooting in the Nedimala area of Dehiwala “on the 4th of last month” — 4 August, the same date.
The Daily Mirror’s description of that shooting is closer to NewsFirst’s than to the original bakery reports. It says two unidentified gunmen arrived on a motorcycle and opened fire at a person in the area. That is a rider-plus-gunman account, and it matches NewsFirst’s implication of two people.
This narrows the question rather than closing it. Nedimala and the Dahanayake Grounds are both in the Dehiwala police division and roughly a kilometre apart, and both incidents are dated 4 August. But the bakery attempt involved a weapon that failed to fire and no shots — the Daily Mirror says shots were fired here. The two may be separate incidents on the same evening, and no outlet has said which.
The Daily Mirror’s account of the raid otherwise matches NewsFirst’s on the number arrested, the two women, the agencies involved and the Rs. 108,400 seized, with slightly rounded drug quantities (approximately 7g of kush, 32g of hashish, 4g of heroin and 20 pills). It adds that the operation took place at a housing complex in the Mount Lavinia police area and, like NewsFirst, does not name any suspect.
Police had earlier said they suspected the bakery attack was carried out on behalf of an alleged organised crime figure and drug trafficker known as “Sando”, and appointed four special teams to investigate a run of shootings across the Dehiwala, Boralesgamuwa and Mount Lavinia police divisions.
A large operation for a small seizure
The quantities recovered are modest — the heroin and kush together amount to about 12 grams — for an operation drawing on the STF, the Organized Crime Special Operations unit, regular police and the army. That the four raids all targeted one housing complex, and that the suspects are neighbours, suggests officers were working a specific address rather than sweeping an area.
The arrests come as police continue to press organised crime networks in the Colombo southern suburbs, a focus sharpened by the grenade attack in Dehiwala that killed two children on 11 September.
Not reported
Neither outlet names any suspect, says when the raids took place, specifies which of the five is the alleged motorcyclist, or states what charges any of them face or when they will be produced in court. Neither says what “Phil” pills are, gives a street value for the seizure, or says whether the two women face the same allegations as the men. Neither says whether the Nedimala shooting caused any injury, or whether the second person involved has been identified.
Hiru News carried nothing on the raids and Ada Derana’s site returned a CloudFront error.
