The Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment’s Special Investigation Division has arrested a suspect known as “Dubai Sudda” — a Bulathsinhala Pradeshiya Sabha member representing the United National Party — in connection with an alleged tourist-visa scam selling jobs in Dubai and Moldova.
The suspect was taken into custody in Kaduwela on Monday following a complaint from a resident of Giriulla, who told investigators he had paid Rs. 700,000 for a Dubai posting that never materialised. The SLBFE said the suspect had advertised the scheme through social media and used tourist visas to send Sri Lankans abroad in violation of the formal recruitment licensing regime.
The accused had recently returned to Sri Lanka from overseas and attempted to flee in his private vehicle as officers moved to arrest him, before being taken into custody at the scene. The case will be referred to court for the suspect to be produced and the investigation continues.
The arrest is the latest in a sustained crackdown that has produced a Maharagama foreign-job racket arrest, the SLBFE’s break-up of a Canada-NGO recruitment ring in Kuchchaveli, a Yakkala foreign-employment fraud using fake IDs and, in early May, the arrest of an SLPP-aligned Pradeshiya Sabha member over a Romania scheme — making the “Dubai Sudda” case the second local-government councillor to be detained under the SLBFE SID operations this cycle.
Update — June 19: Guilty plea at Kuliyapitiya court
The suspect, named in court as Ranthatige Nishanka Priyadarshana, pleaded guilty before the Kuliyapitiya Magistrate’s Court on June 16 to charges of obtaining Rs. 700,000 from a Kuliyapitiya resident on the promise of overseas employment that never materialised, and to operating without a Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment licence, Ada Derana reported.
The Magistrate ordered the Rs. 700,000 be deposited in court on behalf of the aggrieved party and recalled the case for August 25, 2026. A separate but similar case against the suspect is scheduled to be heard at the Welisara Magistrate’s Court on June 26, 2026. The SLBFE has urged anyone with additional complaints against him to contact its Special Investigations Unit.
