Four people, including one woman, were arrested at a star-class hotel in Colombo with US$600,000 in counterfeit US dollar notes, the Colombo Crimes Investigation Bureau (CCIB) said.
The arrests were made during an operation by CCIB officers who recovered the fake currency at the hotel premises, Ada Derana reported on Monday. Police did not immediately release the nationalities of the suspects, the room number, the precise denominations of the seized notes, or how the operation was triggered.
A counterfeit haul of this scale — equivalent to more than Rs. 180 million at current exchange rates — is among the larger fake-USD seizures of the current cycle. CCIB earlier in May arrested four people at a Galle hotel in possession of US$200,000 in counterfeit notes in a similar Tajikistan-linked sting, after which the suspects were remanded under the Penal Code’s counterfeit-currency provisions.
The CCIB is the lead unit handling organised counterfeit-currency investigations in the Western Province, and the Colombo operation continues a pattern of hotel-based stings that depend on informant tips and surveillance of suspected buyers and sellers.
Further investigations are continuing. Police said additional details — including the charges and the production of the suspects in court — would be released after initial questioning.
Source: Ada Derana — Four arrested with counterfeit US Dollars at hotel in Colombo.
