The Inspector General of Police has directed the Criminal Investigation Department to open a formal criminal investigation into alleged negligence and delay by police officers handling intelligence on the drug consignment seized at the Colombo Port on 31 August, escalating what had been an internal departmental inquiry.
The decision follows interim findings by the Police Special Investigation Unit, which concluded that officers responsible for acting on the first intelligence report had allegedly failed to do so, the Daily Mirror reported.
The seventeen-day gap
According to police, Senior Deputy Inspector General Ranmal Kodituwakku received intelligence on 14 August that two containers carrying illegal drugs had been imported and were sitting at the Colombo International Container Terminals. He forwarded it to the Police Narcotic Bureau the same day.
The consignment was not detected until 31 August — seventeen days later.
It was the finding that appropriate action had not been taken in that interval that prompted the IGP to order the Special Investigation Unit inquiry. The unit’s interim conclusion was alleged negligence and dereliction of duty, and it recommended a full criminal investigation alongside the departmental one.
A second tip-off, and who actually made the find
The investigation also established that Sub-Inspector Ekanayake of the Central Crimes Investigation Bureau received separate information about the same consignment from a personal informant on 22 August — eight days after the first report reached the Narcotic Bureau.
Police say SI Ekanayake acted immediately. A team led by the CCIB director went to the port on 31 August and began scanning the containers with Customs officials. Narcotic Bureau officers arrived after the scanning was already under way.
On that account, the detection was made primarily by the CCIB team rather than by the unit that had held the intelligence since 14 August.
What the CID has been asked to determine
The CID investigation will establish whether the delay, alleged negligence and other omissions by police officers or officials of other agencies were intended to benefit an outside party, and whether there are sufficient grounds to bring criminal charges against any officer found responsible.
That is the substantive escalation. A departmental inquiry can end in disciplinary action; this one is now framed around whether the failure was corrupt rather than merely careless.
Hiru News reported that the police account was issued as a clarification, in response to what the force described as false information circulating about the discovery and the investigations that followed.
The case so far
The 31 August seizure at the Colombo Port, reported at the time as a 463 kg consignment of crystal methamphetamine, was among the largest detected at the terminal. An internal Special Investigation Unit inquiry into the delay was opened on 11 September, and SDIG Kodituwakku gave a statement to the CID on 29 September.
Not reported
Neither account names the Narcotic Bureau officers who received the 14 August report, says how many officers are under investigation, or gives a timeframe for the CID inquiry. Neither explains what was done with the intelligence between 14 and 31 August, or whether any arrests followed the seizure itself.
