Sri Lanka Police have frozen assets belonging to a married couple from Borella accused of trafficking narcotics through instant money-transfer systems, Ada Derana reported.
The action was taken by the Illegal Assets Investigation Division (IAID) following a lengthy probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Investigators have alleged that the couple, residents of Siri Sara Uyana on Baseline Road, Borella, had been engaged in drug trafficking since 2017 and channelled proceeds into bank accounts held in the name of the female suspect’s mother.
The female suspect — a 32-year-old — is alleged to have used illicit earnings to purchase a six-perch property with a house in Oruwala, Athurugiriya, in December 2023 for nearly Rs. 30 million. Authorities have issued a seven-day freezing order on that property, effective Tuesday (20 May), under the provisions of the Money Laundering Act.
The suspects, a 32-year-old woman and a 37-year-old man from Borella, were arrested in Athurugiriya on Tuesday by IAID officers. Investigations are continuing into six bank accounts held by the suspects and the woman’s mother, as well as a luxury vehicle registered to the male suspect that police believe was purchased with proceeds of drug trafficking.
The case is the first publicly disclosed application of PMLA asset-freezing powers against narcotics proceeds routed through retail instant-transfer platforms — a payment channel that has rapidly expanded since 2020 and which counter-narcotics units have flagged as an emerging laundering vector. It comes alongside the ongoing Rata Ekata anti-narcotics drive, which reached 156,456 cumulative arrests and 1,917 kg of heroin seizures earlier this cycle.
Source: Ada Derana.
