The Horana Chief Magistrate’s Court on Monday directed the manager of a state bank branch in Horana to submit a detailed report to police on the bank’s financial administration procedures, as investigations into the Rs. 35 million cash theft on June 3 increasingly point to internal misappropriation rather than an external armed robbery.
Chief Magistrate Lakmini Widanagamage issued the order at the request of police, who told court that a review of the bank’s formal financial processes was necessary to advance the investigation, Ada Derana reported. The bank manager has agreed to provide the required documentation.
Police also produced Rs. 1,747,000 in cash before court, together with the bag used to conceal it, which investigators said had been hidden between an iron rack and a wall inside the bank premises. The Western North Crimes Division informed court of the developments.
The Assistant Manager of the bank, arrested in connection with the theft, remains in custody under a six-day detention order. The security guard arrested alongside him was remanded until June 11.
The case was originally reported as a robbery on June 3, when a bank employee was allegedly accosted while carrying two cash bags through the rear entrance for deposit into the branch’s ATMs. Police have since reclassified the incident as a long-running internal fraud staged as a robbery, alleging the Assistant Manager had been diverting bank funds over an extended period — primarily to service interest payments on personal loans from multiple individuals and, in part, to fund private business ventures including mining-related activities.
The magistrate’s order on financial procedures formalises the audit-trail leg of the investigation, after the Assistant Manager and a security officer were arrested two days into the probe on suspicion of staging the cash snatch.
