A Myanmar national was arrested at Bandaranaike International Airport in the early hours of Wednesday carrying 4 kilograms and 646 grams of Kush, police said.
The suspect, a labourer by occupation, arrived at Katunayake at about 1.45 a.m. on Thai Airways flight TG-307 from Bangkok. Officers of the Airport Police Narcotics Bureau found the drug in three separate packets concealed in his luggage, hidden among clothing, sweets and other food items, the Daily Mirror reported at 1.09 p.m.
He was due to be produced before the Negombo Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, after which he is to be handed to the Colombo Police Narcotics Bureau headquarters for further questioning. Hiru News reported the arrest in English at 1.46 p.m. with the same flight, the same time, the same quantity, the same concealment and the same court.
The two filings disagree on two facts
They agree on everything operational and differ on two details:
| Daily Mirror | Hiru News | |
|---|---|---|
| Age of suspect | 22 | 32 |
| Value of seizure | Rs 46,460,000 | Rs 46,060,000 |
| Quantity | 4,646 g | 4,646 g |
The valuation can be settled by arithmetic
Sri Lankan police value Kush seizures at a consistent Rs 10 million per kilogram, and this desk’s own archive confirms the rate across three separate cases: a Filipino national stopped at the same airport with 6 kg had it valued at Rs 60 million, an 8 kg seizure in the same report at Rs 80 million, and a 110 kg case at Rs 1.1 billion. All three are exactly Rs 10 million a kilogram.
Applying that rate to Wednesday’s quantity:
4.646 kg × Rs 10,000,000 = Rs 46,460,000.
That is the Daily Mirror’s figure to the rupee. Hiru’s Rs 46,060,000 would imply a rate of about Rs 9.91 million a kilogram, which matches no precedent in the archive and is not a round number.
The Daily Mirror’s valuation is therefore the one consistent with how the figure is produced, and Hiru’s appears to be a transposition — a 4 read as a 0 in the same position. Rs 46.46 million is used throughout this report.
The ages cannot be resolved the same way. Twenty-two and thirty-two differ by a single digit in a way that is equally likely in either direction, and no third verified filing was available to break the tie. Both figures are recorded here and neither is adopted.
One apparent contradiction that is not one
The two reports describe the direction of the smuggling differently. The Daily Mirror says the suspect attempted to bring the drug into the country; Hiru says he was attempting to transport it out of the Katunayake Airport.
These describe the same movement. The man arrived on an inbound flight from Bangkok and was intercepted while carrying the consignment out of the terminal — in other words, into Sri Lanka. Readers should not take Hiru’s wording to mean he was leaving the country.
Context
Kush, a synthetic-cannabinoid preparation, has become the drug most frequently intercepted at Bandaranaike International Airport, and the pattern in this case is the established one: a courier on a short-haul flight from a South East Asian hub, a few kilograms split across packets, and food items used as cover. The archive records comparable interceptions involving Indonesian and Filipino nationals on the same route profile.
Neither filing says whether this arrest is linked to any earlier case.
Not reported
Neither report names the suspect, states whether he was remanded or bailed at Negombo, or gives the outcome of Wednesday’s court appearance. Neither says whether he was travelling alone, whether he was stopped on profiling or at random, or whether anyone was waiting to receive the consignment in Sri Lanka. Neither gives the street value as distinct from the police valuation, and neither explains why the two published valuations differ.
Ada Derana also filed on this arrest (adaderana.lk/news/250309, headlined at “Rs. 46 million”). Its site has returned an HTTP 403 to this desk for 33 consecutive days, so no publication date could be extracted for it and it is not cited as a source here. Its rounded headline figure does not distinguish between the two published valuations in any case.