Three men have been arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department over an alleged operation producing forged land documents, counterfeit official seals and fake national identity cards from a house in Borella, Newswire reported.
The raid, conducted on Friday by officers attached to the Financial and Commercial Crimes Investigation Division of the CID at a property on N.M. Perera Mawatha, recovered two original files containing deed copies from the Land Registry, forged documents relating to land transactions, four fake national identity cards and around 600 counterfeit official seals. Electronic equipment allegedly used to produce forged documents was also seized.
Officers seized a car, a motorcycle, Rs. 1.5 million in cash and several other assets believed to have been used in or proceeds of the offences. A third suspect was later arrested in Delkanda based on information gathered during the investigation, Newswire said. The three men are aged 54, 55 and 59 and are residents of Borella, Dickwella and Horana.
The Financial and Commercial Crimes Investigation Division is continuing investigations. The Borella raid is the largest publicly disclosed haul of counterfeit official seals in a single CID operation this cycle, and follows a string of recent CID financial-crime cases including the NDB Rs. 13.2 billion derivative fraud and a separate Borella narcotic-assets freezing order earlier this year.
