Indian national arrested at Katunayake with kush and hashish worth Rs. 230 million

A 37-year-old Indian national described as a businessman has been arrested at Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake with a consignment of kush and hashish valued at about Rs. 230 million.

Officers recovered 2kg 102g of kush and 5kg 260g of hashish — just over 7.3kg in total, Hiru News reported. The outlet gave the value in the Sinhala numbering system as 23 crore rupees, which is Rs. 230 million.

Investigations into the suspect are continuing.

How it appears to have been carried

Hiru News published a photograph with the report showing an opened hard-shell suitcase on what appears to be an inspection bench, packed with sealed bags of brightly wrapped “OKASHI”-branded confectionery, alongside several yellow food tins standing open on the counter beside it.

Concealment inside sweets and tinned food is a recurring method in airport interdictions here — this desk’s archive includes seizures in which kush was packed among chocolates and in cosmetic containers. The Hiru report does not itself describe the concealment method, and the photograph is noted here as what the outlet published rather than as a stated police finding.

Context

Bandaranaike International Airport accounts for a steady stream of narcotics arrests involving arriving passengers, a number of them foreign nationals. An Indian national was detained at the airport in late October in a separate kush case.

A separate arrest was reported the same morning in Thalawathugoda, where the Special Task Force seized ice and heroin. The two cases involve different suspects, locations and substances, and no outlet links them.

Not reported

The filing does not name the suspect, state which flight or country he arrived from, or say which agency made the arrest — Customs, the Police Narcotics Bureau or airport police. It does not say how the drugs were detected, whether the suspect has been produced in court, or how the Rs. 230 million valuation was arrived at.

An arrest is not a finding of guilt, and no charges had been reported at the time of writing.

Sources: Hiru News.