Fifty foreign nationals who had overstayed their business visas were arrested in Negombo on Monday afternoon by officers from the Investigation Division of the Department of Immigration and Emigration.
Those arrested comprise 47 Chinese nationals, two Malaysians and one Indian national, according to the Department. The suspects were taken into custody at a house where they had been staying, after the Immigration Department’s intelligence unit received information about the group.
The arrests were carried out on instructions from the Controller General of Immigration and Emigration. The detainees are being held at the Welisara Detention Centre, and arrangements have been made to deport them from the country promptly.
The scale of the Negombo operation is unusually large for a single immigration sweep. Past enforcement actions have typically involved smaller groups or individual arrests at Bandaranaike International Airport. Recent immigration-linked arrests include nine Chinese nationals detained at BIA for alleged cybercrime and two Indonesians caught at BIA with Rs. 60M of Kush.
The Department has not disclosed how long the group had been in the country beyond their visa expiry, whether any business activity is under investigation, or the circumstances that led them to share the Negombo residence. No court date has been announced ahead of the deportation process.
