Former Puttalam District MP Shantha Abeysekara and his son have been arrested by the Police Illegal Assets Investigations Division.

The arrest was made when they arrived to give a statement regarding an illegally assembled vehicle, Police said.

The arrested suspects are expected to be produce before the Mahara Magistrate’s Court tomorrow (19).

On February 6, an illegally assembled luxury vehicle which was allegedly used by former MP and SJB member Abeysekara, was found disassembled and concealed by officers of the Illegal Assets Investigations Division..

A division of the IAD had reportedly received information that former MP Shantha Abeysekara was using an illegally assembled luxury vehicle.

Accordingly, after investigating the relevant information for several days, a team of officers were dispatched to Puttalam to seize the vehicle.

However, the vehicle could not be located, and further investigation have revealed that it had been disassembled and hidden in two separate locations.

Parts of the vehicle were concealed in a coconut plantation land in Puttalam owned by the former MP and in another house near his residence. The chassis and body parts of the vehicle were found hidden in the nearby house, while several more vehicle parts, including the engine, were discovered in the aforementioned property.

Further investigations revealed that the vehicle had been registered using the engine and chassis numbers of a vehicle already currently used by the Department of Agriculture.

It was also revealed that the vehicle used by the former MP had these numbers engraved on it.

Furthermore, it was revealed that the former MP Shantha Abeysekara and his son had allegedly disassembled and hidden the vehicle after police recently seized several illegally assembled vehicles.

Police stated that although they attempted to record a statement from the former MP on February 5 regarding this matter, he could not be reached.