The International Monetary Fund says it has not discussed with Sri Lankan authorities the government’s claim that around US$1 billion left the country through payments for imports that never arrived.
Responding to a query from the Daily Mirror, an IMF spokesman said: “We have not discussed this matter with the authorities. Overall, it is important for Sri Lanka to continue advancing its governance and anti-corruption agenda.” The Daily Mirror published the response on Thursday morning.
The two sentences do different work. The first is a flat statement that the single largest alleged financial crime of the current administration has not come up between Colombo and its principal creditor-adviser. The second declines to treat that as a reason for comfort.
The claim itself is four months old
This is worth stating plainly, because the Fund’s response reads as fresh news and the allegation underneath it is not. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake made the US$1 billion claim on 25 June 2026, describing advance payments wired abroad since 2023 against goods that never landed, and saying certain bank branches and managers had facilitated them.
What is new on Thursday is only the IMF’s answer to a question the Daily Mirror put to it. No other newsroom carried that answer, which makes this a Daily Mirror exclusive rather than an event several outlets witnessed.
Meanwhile, the case is live in court
On the same day, the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court moved on the prosecution arising from the same conduct.
Chief Magistrate Asanga S. Bodaragama ordered the first, seventh and eighth suspects — including the businessman Hiru names as Jiffry Mohamed — further remanded until 29 October in the case concerning Rs 190 billion allegedly sent abroad under the guise of importing goods, Hiru News reported at 3.02 p.m.
Three details from that sitting matter:
- The sixth suspect was released on bail, the magistrate ruling that the prosecution had not placed sufficient evidence before the court to justify continued remand. Bail was set at Rs 100,000 cash with two sureties of Rs 1 million each.
- The Financial Crimes Investigation Division objected to bail for the seventh suspect and filed a progress report on the investigation.
- Investigators told the court that the eighth suspect had destroyed documentary evidence relevant to the inquiry.
This desk has followed the case since four bank officials were arrested at their branches in August — the first such detentions in Sri Lanka — and further remanded on 20 August, when the bench ordered the FCID to examine whether senior bank management had aided the scheme. A parliamentary committee later heard that banks had defeated the main safeguard by typing a full stop into a mandatory reference field. Our August coverage rendered the businessman’s name Jeffrey Mohamed; Hiru’s Sinhala gives Jiffry. No filing supplies the full legal form.
These are two separate developments on one thread, not two newsrooms confirming one event. The Daily Mirror does not mention the court sitting; Hiru does not mention the IMF.
The two figures do not meet
The court case is framed around Rs 190 billion, which is roughly US$630 million at current rates — well short of the US$1 billion the President described. No filing says whether the prosecution covers the whole of the alleged outflow or one network inside a larger pattern.
Not reported
Neither filing says whether the IMF intends to raise the matter, or whether it would fall within a scheduled programme review. Neither identifies the first, seventh and eighth suspects beyond their numbering, nor says what became of the senior-management investigation the court ordered in August. No filing explains why a claim made by the head of state in June has not reached the Fund in four months.