The Financial Investigation Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department has arrested a 73-year-old man from Kalutara over an alleged land fraud involving a forged deed for a property on Barnes Place, Colombo 07, one of the capital’s most valuable residential addresses.
Police say the suspect fabricated a counterfeit deed for the property, submitted the forged documentation in court proceedings, and then fraudulently sold the land, obtaining close to Rs. 10 million, the Daily Mirror reported.
The arrest was made in Kalutara town following what the Daily Mirror describes as an extensive investigation opened on a complaint lodged with the CID. NewsFirst gives the same account of the offence — a forged deed prepared and then submitted as part of judicial proceedings.
The Financial Investigation Unit is continuing its inquiries.
There is already a Barnes Place forged-deed case before the courts
Neither outlet links Wednesday’s arrest to any existing investigation. But a CID inquiry into an alleged forged-deed sale of a Barnes Place property has been running publicly for at least a week, and the overlap is close enough to set out.
On 10 September, racing driver Dilantha Malagamuwa publicly denied any role in what the Daily Mirror described as a CID inquiry into an alleged forged-deed transaction over a 43-perch Barnes Place property. In that case the CID had told court that three individuals shared money from the transaction and that Malagamuwa allegedly received 14 luxury vehicles rather than cash. Colombo Additional Magistrate Lahiru Silva refused the CID’s request for overseas travel bans on Malagamuwa and three others, directing investigators to first take steps to name the four as suspects.
Wednesday’s arrest — by the same department, over a forged deed for a property on the same street, six days after a magistrate told investigators to move from inquiry to named suspects — is consistent with that sequence. It is not confirmation of it. No outlet says the two are the same file, and the suspect arrested on Wednesday has not been named.
The clearest obstacle to treating them as one case is the money. The September case concerned a property reported as worth more than Rs. 2.5 billion and allegedly sold for Rs. 1 billion. Wednesday’s reporting puts the sum obtained at nearly Rs. 10 million — two orders of magnitude apart. Either the figures describe different transactions, or they measure different things: a sale price against a share taken, a deposit, or the consideration recited on the forged deed itself rather than the money that actually moved. Nothing in Wednesday’s reporting settles which.
The two outlets differ on the date
The Daily Mirror says the suspect was taken into custody today (16). NewsFirst says he was arrested yesterday in Kalutara. Both filed on Wednesday morning within about 20 minutes of each other. Neither acknowledges the other’s timing, and the discrepancy is left as reported.
Not reported
Neither outlet names the suspect, identifies the property’s registered owner, or says who bought it and whether the buyer is treated as a victim or a party. Neither says when the alleged sale took place, in which court the forged deed was filed, or what those proceedings concerned.
Neither says whether the suspect has been produced before a magistrate, whether further arrests are expected, or whether he is one of the four individuals the CID was directed to name in the case reported on 10 September.
