The 74 Vietnamese nationals arrested in Sri Lanka over alleged online financial fraud had previously been deported from Cambodia for similar cybercrimes, the Colpetty Police told the Colombo Magistrate’s Court on Friday.
Reporting before Magistrate Pasan Amarasena, police said the suspects had been residing in Sri Lanka in breach of their visa conditions. Investigators also disclosed that the group’s wages had been paid by a Sri Lankan woman, who told officers the funds were sent to her by an unknown individual.
After considering the submissions, the magistrate ordered the suspects remain in remand custody until May 21.
The Cambodia link is the first publicly disclosed detail about the suspects’ background since their arrest at a Uttarananda Mawatha housing complex in Kollupitiya on May 7. The 41 men and 33 women, aged between 19 and 39, were picked up hours after a separate raid at a second building in the same area netted 60 more foreigners over suspected computer-related crimes.
The Kollupitiya cluster forms part of a fast-widening enforcement campaign in Western Province suburbs. In the days before the Vietnamese arrests, 157 suspects of nine nationalities were detained in Rajagiriya, Medawelikada and Talangama, with 120 remanded and 37 Chinese nationals deported. Operations have since extended to Hikkaduwa, Galle and Midigama and to Trincomalee and Waskaduwa.
A NewsFirst investigation published earlier this month traced the influx to organised online-fraud syndicates previously based in Myanmar’s Myawaddy region, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates that appear to be relocating operations to Sri Lanka. Friday’s disclosure that the Vietnamese group had been deported from Cambodia is consistent with the Mekong sub-region displacement pattern flagged in that reporting.
