A 46-year-old tour guide from Benthara has been arrested by the Financial Crimes Investigation Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department in connection with the alleged fraud of €91,860 against a German national, NewsFirst reported on Saturday.
Police said the arrest followed a complaint from the German tourist that money he had invested in a Sri Lankan tourism business had been misappropriated by the suspect. The Financial Crimes unit took the suspect into custody at Benthara, the south-western coastal town in Galle District that has long been a stop on the southern beach circuit.
NewsFirst did not name the suspect or the tourism venture, and police did not disclose the specific allegations to be pressed.
The arrest comes as Sri Lankan authorities work to repair the country’s image with European visitors after a steep April tourism slump, which Tourism Minister Vijitha Herath has attributed to the continuing Iran–Israel conflict that has unsettled long-haul markets. Tour-guide-led investment vehicles for foreign visitors fall outside the licensing regime of formal tourism establishments and have surfaced repeatedly in CID fraud files over recent years.
