Thirty-seven Chinese nationals, including one woman, have been arrested and remanded on suspicion of running online financial scams from a rented house in Sri Lanka, Ada Derana reported.
The Kaduwela Magistrate’s Court ordered the suspects remanded until May 7 after a joint operation by the Walana Central Anti-Vice Task Force and the Anti-Vice Unit of Thalangama Police raided the property in the Koswatta area of Thalangama.
Officers seized 35 desktop computers, 37 tablets, 147 mobile phones, 100 SIM cards and 2,100 sticks of foreign cigarettes during the raid. Police have sealed the house along with the equipment.
Initial investigations have established that the 37 suspects had entered Sri Lanka on three-month tourist visas and were operating commercially in violation of those visa conditions. Authorities are still working to determine the precise nature of the alleged offences — whether the group was running internet-based financial scams, hacking operations or other forms of online crime.
The seized devices have been handed over to the Computer Crimes Investigation Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department for forensic examination.
The Thalangama bust is the latest in a sequence of arrests of Chinese nationals on tourist or business visas accused of operating illicit ventures from Sri Lanka. Last month, 50 foreign nationals were arrested in Negombo over alleged business-visa overstays, and nine Chinese nationals were stopped at BIA carrying Rs. 24 million in concealed cybercrime electronics. The Court of Appeal is also separately hearing a challenge to a mass deportation of Chinese nationals carried out earlier in 2026.
Source: Ada Derana.
