The United States Embassy in Colombo has formally denied media reports that an FBI “team” had arrived in Sri Lanka to assist investigations into the alleged cyber theft of Sri Lankan Treasury funds, saying recent reporting had “incorrectly stated” that such a deployment had occurred.
“No such deployment has occurred,” the Embassy said in a statement issued on Saturday. It clarified that, as in many other countries, the United States maintains an FBI Legal Attaché presence at the Embassy to coordinate ongoing law enforcement cooperation with host nation counterparts when requested. The presence is permanent, not an ad-hoc deployment.
“Accuracy matters, particularly on sensitive security and investigative matters,” the statement added.
The clarification follows local media reports earlier in the week that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had sent personnel to Colombo to help authorities investigate the alleged cyber theft of USD 2.5 million from Treasury funds, the AEFA-channel fraud first disclosed in late April, as well as the separate USD 625,000 payment-misdirection case linked to US postal authorities.
The CID confirmed at the start of May that it had reached out to the FBI and a US cybersecurity firm as the probe widened internationally, with the foreign counterparty banks for both incidents based in the United States. Saturday’s Embassy statement does not contradict that cooperation channel; it disputes only the specific characterisation that a dedicated team had been dispatched to the island.
