Thirty-seven Chinese nationals arrested in connection with cybercrime activity were deported from Sri Lanka on Monday night after being held at the Welisara Detention Centre, raising fresh concern that organised online-fraud syndicates previously based in Myanmar, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates may be shifting operations to the island, NewsFirst reported in an investigation published Tuesday.
Police confirmed that 157 suspects connected to cybercrime have been arrested over the past three days. Of those, 120 were remanded after raids along Rajagiriya and Medawelikada Road, where the group had rented multiple floors of a residential building to run financial-fraud operations. Suspects span nine nationalities including Chinese, Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese citizens. In a separate raid in Talangama, the Walana Anti-Corruption Task Force arrested another 37 Chinese nationals; the Kaduwela Magistrate’s Court remanded them until May 8.
The deportations come on top of nine Chinese nationals arrested at Bandaranaike International Airport on April 14 carrying Rs. 24 million worth of electronic equipment intended for computer-based fraud, and eight Chinese and Vietnamese nationals arrested in the Godakanda area of Poddala days earlier.
NewsFirst reported that recruitment patterns visible on Sri Lankan job sites since early 2024 — high salaries above Rs. 100,000 with only basic computer skills required — closely resemble the recruitment tactics used by syndicates in Myanmar’s Myawaddy region and Dubai. A Sri Lankan woman rescued from a Myanmar cybercrime compound told the broadcaster that workers in such operations were initially well treated before being subjected to torture, electrocution, beatings and confinement when their salaries were stopped.
Photographic evidence has reached NewsFirst of a suspected cybercrime centre operating in Battaramulla. When the broadcaster’s team visited the location, the occupants had vacated the premises.
Sources: NewsFirst.
