How did Lt. Col. Prasanna Wickramasuriya get money to buy ‘Rivira’?

 Tuesday, 31 March 2015

It is a question being raised in the media field as to how Sri Lanka Army’s retired Lt. Col. Prasanna Wickramasuriya found money to buy the ‘Rivira’ newspaper.

He resigned from active service on 31 December 2001 citing himself as being medically condemned. At that time, a colonel’s monthly salary stood at between Rs. 40,000 and Rs. 50,000. His wife was unemployed. ‘Lanka News Web’ was able to make several revelations when investigating as to how a person of his financial position was able to invest Rs. 100 million.

Lt. Col. Prasanna Wickramasuriya is the brother of former ambassador in the US Jaliya Wickramasuriya. They both are cousins of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Anoma Lafir, the widow of Col. Fazly Lafir who laid down his life in Mullaitivu, is their sister, and she had served as a coordinating secretary to the ex-president.

After leaving the Army, Prasanna had gone to live in Atlanta, USA. Then, he assisted his brother Jaliya in marketing products of Royal Ceylon Tea (Pvt.) Ltd., owned by the ex-ambassador. It was a racket in which expired tea was repacked with new dates, for which task, they had used the staffers of the Sri Lankan embassy in the US, who were being paid by the Sri Lankan government. Had the US authorities caught this racket by the Wickramasuriya brothers of repacking third grade and expired tea, Sri Lankan tea could have been banned in the US.

The Wickramasuriyas defaulted Rs. 12 million to Hayleys Shivaro and four other companies that they had used for the shipping of the tea to the US, and when they demanded their payments, the brothers had used the powers of the Rajapaksas, threatened the companies and avoided making the payments. Since the Rajapaksa regime is no more, these companies are going to demand their dues.

The aggrieved parties will soon lodge complaints against the Wickramasuriya brothers with the financial fraud investigation unit led by DIG Ravi Vidyalankara.

The main issue here is as to how Prasanna, who was also chairman of the Aviation Authority, found more than Rs. 100 m to buy Rivira Media Corporation from Sena Yaddehige. According to reports reaching us, Prasanna and his family had fled Atlanta and are reportedly seen in Seattle.