The Department of Immigration and Emigration will conduct special checks on individuals arriving in Sri Lanka from countries whose nationals have previously been arrested for cybercrime, Controller General of Immigration and Emigration Iraj Pathiraja said on Thursday.
Speaking through NewsFirst, Pathiraja said authorities will “closely monitor” arrivals from such countries at Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) and verify whether they are entering Sri Lanka for genuine tourism. Police and immigration officers are conducting parallel inspections on foreign tourists already in the country, he said.
Individuals arrested in connection with cybercrime offences will be deported and face legal action, the Controller General added.
The new screening direction follows a sustained run of large-scale arrests of foreign nationals running online scam operations from rented houses in Colombo and outlying districts. Police have detained 74 Vietnamese nationals in Kollupitiya in early May, 628 foreigners across multiple Western Province raids since the operation began, and have re-arrested 30 cybercrime suspects who had absconded after an earlier Boralesgamuwa raid. Most suspects have been Vietnamese or Chinese nationals.
Pathiraja, who was appointed Controller General in late April, has signalled a more proactive immigration posture by shifting the response from after-the-fact raids to airport-stage screening. Officials have not named the specific countries that will be subject to closer scrutiny.
