Sri Lanka Police have arrested a woman in Wellampitiya after a raid uncovered a large stockpile of counterfeit US dollar notes equivalent to about Rs. 190 million, NewsFirst reported on Monday.
The suspect was taken into custody during a targeted operation by the Colombo Central Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB). Authorities said the fake notes were recovered from the woman’s premises at the time of the arrest. The suspect is identified only as a resident of the Wellampitiya area.
The Wellampitiya seizure is the second sizeable CCIB counterfeit US dollar operation reported on June 8 in the Western Province. Earlier the same day, the unit arrested four people including a woman at a star-class Colombo hotel with US$600,000 in counterfeit notes, a haul worth roughly Rs. 180 million at current exchange rates. The two operations together account for fake currency notionally valued at more than Rs. 370 million within a single day.
The CCIB is the lead unit handling organised counterfeit-currency investigations in the Western Province and has run a sustained cycle of hotel and residential stings in 2026, including the May arrest of four Tajikistan-linked suspects at a Galle hotel with US$200,000 in fake notes.
Police have not released the suspect’s name, the denominations of the seized notes, or details of the charges. The investigation is continuing.
