It was revealed before the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court that 89 companies registered in Sri Lanka had remitted more than Rs. 190 billion in US dollars out of the country under the guise of importing goods, despite no such goods being imported into the country.
This was revealed when a suspect arrested in connection with the alleged racket was produced before the court on Thursday (25).
The suspect, identified as Jeffrey Mohamed, was recently arrested by the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) in connection with the racket.
The Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court had previously granted permission to detain and question the suspect for seven days, following which he was produced before Colombo Chief Magistrate Asanga S. Bodaragama.
Senior State Counsel Oswald Perera, presenting a further report to the court regarding the investigation into the incident, stated that investigations initially commenced into an incident in which US dollars worth billions of rupees had been transferred out of the country through a telegraphic transfer (TT) system operated via an institution called “Next Gen”.
Subsequent investigations revealed that 89 registered companies in the country had remitted over Rs. 190 billion in US dollars abroad through the alleged racket and that, although the money had been remitted under the pretext of importing goods, no such goods had been imported into the country.
The Senior State Counsel further informed the court that investigations were later initiated into 36 of the 89 registered companies and that several individuals had fraudulently presented themselves as owners and opened the relevant companies and bank accounts.
He further stated that approximately Rs. 75 billion in US dollars had been remitted abroad in 10,151 transactions in the name of those companies alone.
The Senior State Counsel also informed the court that further investigations had revealed that money earned illegally by drug traffickers had also been laundered through this illegal process.
Meanwhile, during the interrogation of four suspects recently arrested in connection with drug trafficking in the Negombo area, investigators had uncovered that money generated through the drug trafficking operations of alleged drug trafficker ‘Konda Ranji’ had been transferred from an account belonging to a person identified as ‘Weli Chandana’ to an account of a company named ‘A.Y. Investment’.
Senior State Counsel Perera pointed out that Rs. 6 million in US dollars had been remitted out of the country through ‘A.Y. Investment’.
He further stated that the arrested suspect, Jeffrey Mohamed, was the owner of the company and that he had Rs. 1 million in his possession at the time of his arrest.
Accordingly, after considering the facts presented, Colombo Chief Magistrate Asanga S. Bodaragama ordered that the suspect be remanded until July 09.
