The Police Narcotics Bureau has arrested a suspect with more than 21 kilogrammes of heroin at Katana, in a haul police value at close to Rs 500 million.
The drugs and the suspect were taken in a special raid in the Samurdhi Mawatha area, off the Katana–Giriulla road, police said in an account reported by Hiru News at 7.35 a.m. on Sunday.
The valuation is given in the original as close to Rs 50 crore — Rs 500 million, or about half a billion rupees for a little over 21 kilogrammes.
A second large seizure in two days
The arrest follows the much larger find at Talalla, Matara, where the Navy and Coast Guard recovered sacks and travel bags from the beach in a haul the Police Narcotics Bureau put at 561 kilogrammes of heroin and crystal methamphetamine worth more than Rs 11.8 billion — reported by this desk on Saturday.
The two cases are different in kind. Talalla was a coastal recovery of a consignment apparently landed or abandoned at sea; Katana is an inland arrest on a road corridor, with a suspect in custody.
That corridor has featured before. A police chase on the Giriulla stretch ended in heroin arrests in September. Katana sits in the Gampaha District, inland of Negombo and close to the Katunayake airport approaches.
Police have not released the suspect’s identity, the quantity’s exact weight, how the consignment was being moved, or whether the arrest is linked to any larger network.
On sourcing: this report rests on a single verified newsroom. Hiru News filed early on Sunday morning, and no other verified Sri Lankan outlet — Daily Mirror, NewsFirst, Ada Derana, Daily News or EconomyNext — had published on the seizure at the time of writing. Ada Derana’s site has been unreachable from this desk for several weeks.
Sources: Suspect arrested with heroin worth Rs 500 million in Katana — Hiru News, October 25.
