A tipper truck said to belong to the organised crime suspect known as “Bloemendhal Sanka” has been suspended from use by the Illegal Assets Investigation Division, NewsFirst reports. The suspect is in remand custody.
The vehicle is allegedly the property of the suspect, and the suspension was imposed by the Illegal Assets Investigation Division, NewsFirst reported at 3.19 p.m. on Friday. Bloemendhal Sanka is currently remanded, the filing adds.
That is the whole of the filing. It runs to two sentences, and the paragraphs below are context from this desk’s own earlier reporting, not from it.
Where the suspect’s case stands
Bloemendhal Sanka was arrested at Bandaranaike International Airport on 14 June after being deported from Abu Dhabi, along with a second suspect known as “Modara Chathura”. The Criminal Investigation Department took both into custody on arrival. Police said at the time that UAE authorities had deported the pair after allegedly finding video of Iranian drone attacks on their phones.
Friday’s filing does not say what he is remanded over, and this desk cannot assume it is the same matter.
What an asset suspension is part of
The Illegal Assets Investigation Division is the unit directing the police campaign against property held by organised crime figures. In August it was reported to be investigating holdings linked to 25 organised crime figures and drug traffickers who had either fled abroad or been brought back to Sri Lanka, examining assets police allege were bought with the proceeds of crime, with facts on each property to be reported to court. Later that month police said they had frozen assets worth some Rs 6 billion linked to organised crime and drug trafficking.
Suspending a single vehicle from use is a smaller step than freezing a property, and the filing does not place it within that campaign explicitly.
Not reported
NewsFirst does not give the suspect’s name in full, the registration number or value of the tipper truck, or the legal provision under which it was suspended. It does not say whether a court order was obtained, when the suspension took effect, or whether the vehicle was seized or merely barred from being operated.
Nothing states what offence the suspension relates to, what Bloemendhal Sanka is remanded over or until when, whether other assets linked to him are under investigation, or whether anyone has contested the action.
No other verified newsroom was found carrying this item. A keyword sweep of the Daily Mirror breaking rail and the Hiru News rail returned nothing on it at the time of writing, so it is reported here from the NewsFirst filing alone.