Three Thai women were arrested at Bandaranaike International Airport early on Sunday morning carrying more than seven kilogrammes of narcotics between them, NewsFirst reported. All three had arrived on a flight from Bangkok.
What was seized
Police said a 38-year-old woman was stopped on arrival with 3kg 220g of Kush and 1kg 852g of hashish in her possession. A second woman was found with 1kg 994g of Kush and 620g of hashish. A third woman, who allegedly assisted and supported the smuggling operation, was also arrested.
The two seizures together account for 5kg 214g of Kush and 2kg 472g of hashish — 7kg 686g in total, consistent with the “over 7kg” figure police gave. NewsFirst reported that all three women are in their 30s; only the 38-year-old’s age was specified.
The Police Narcotics Bureau is conducting further investigations.
A recurring Bangkok route
The arrest is the third significant Kush interception at Katunayake reported in under two weeks, and the pattern in each is the same inbound Bangkok corridor.
On 15 September, the Police Narcotic Bureau recovered 32kg 91g of Kush, worth an estimated Rs. 320 million, from two suitcases abandoned at the airport after the passenger who checked them in walked away without claiming the bags.
On 7 September, Sri Lanka Customs Narcotics Control Unit officers seized 5.137kg of Kush and hashish worth an estimated Rs. 51.37 million from two Thai nationals — aged 39 and 23 — who arrived on Thai Airways flight TG 307, the Daily Mirror reported on 8 September. In that case the drugs were concealed in eight plastic bottles inside each suspect’s suitcase.
Two things distinguish Sunday’s case from that one. It was made by the Police Narcotics Bureau rather than Customs, and the suspects are all women rather than men.
Kush is a synthetic-cannabinoid preparation that has displaced conventional cannabis trafficking on several South and Southeast Asian air routes, and Sri Lankan authorities have reported rising interceptions at Katunayake through 2026.
Not reported
Police did not give a street value for Sunday’s consignment — unusual for a Sri Lankan narcotics seizure of this size, and the figure that would allow direct comparison with the earlier cases. The September 7 valuations imply a working rate of about Rs. 10,000 per gram for both Kush and hashish, which would put Sunday’s 7kg 686g in the region of Rs. 77 million. That is this publication’s arithmetic from the earlier case, not an official figure, and no authority has valued Sunday’s seizure.
Also unstated: the flight number and carrier, the names of the three women, how the drugs were concealed, whether the third woman travelled on the same flight, which court the suspects will be produced before, and whether investigators believe the recent cases are connected to a single network.
Ada Derana also reported the arrest, but its pages could not be retrieved for verification at the time of writing and it is not cited here.
