The officer-in-charge of the administration division at Kotawila Police Station has been remanded until Friday over unexplained payments into her bank accounts and the lease on a car allegedly paid by a man suspected in a billion-rupee co-operative fraud.
Matara Magistrate Chathura Dissanayake ordered Chief Inspector Waruni Bogahawatte held in remand custody until 6 November, Hiru News reported on Tuesday evening.
She was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department on allegations that included being unable to account for how she received money used to buy a vehicle and to pay its lease instalments. The order was issued when she and two other people were produced before the magistrate’s official chambers on Tuesday afternoon.
The arithmetic the CID put to the court
The CID told the court that large sums had been received into the suspect’s bank accounts, and set two figures side by side: her salary is Rs 140,000 a month, while the lease instalment on the motor vehicle was Rs 132,000.
Having considered the material presented, the magistrate ordered her remanded until the 6th.
The co-operative connection
The suspect’s Honda Vezel had already been taken into CID custody earlier. Officers of the department’s Financial Crimes Investigation Unit seized the car after it emerged that the leasing instalments on it had been paid by a person suspected of involvement in defrauding more than Rs 1 billion from the Matara Co-operative Society.
A panel of lawyers appeared for the suspect, among them Saranga Wadasinghe, Sameera Meekandawatta, Kasun Nanayakkara, Udisha Weeraratne and Dinesh Gamage.
Not reported
The filing does not name the two other people produced alongside her, state what charges they face, name the co-operative fraud suspect who allegedly paid the instalments, or say whether the officer has been interdicted from duty. It gives no total for the sums the CID says passed through her accounts. The court date of 6 November falls on a Friday, consistent with the filing’s own wording.
Hiru News was the only verified newsroom carrying this hearing at the time of writing; Ada Derana remained unreachable from this desk and EconomyNext’s origin was down.