Money Laundering at Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry

– One Indian and Two Sri Lankan Briefly detained at BIA

(November 13, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) A “Coordinating Secretary” of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Mangala Samaraweera who is suspected to be involved in money laundering was briefly detained along with two of his kingpins at the Bandaranaike International Airport ( BIA) , reliable sources informed the Sri Lanka Guardian.

One Sri Lankan national known as Farooq and an Indian national came along with the bureaucrat of the ruling alliance to take the UL 123 flight to Chennai. Then the suspects were detained by the security authority after they have found to be carrying illegal bunches of money suspected to be laundered in India.

After series of arguments the bureaucrat who is the Chairman of the Colombo Commercial Fertiliser Company, Director of Sri Lanka Telecom Mobitel and works  as the Coordinating Secretary to Minister Mangala Samaraweera,  was able to manipulate the situation and get free himself .

No official action has been taken apart from chagrining hundred thousand fine and severe warning to the Indian before he was released. One of two Sri Lankan was released after warnings but no word against the bureaucrat who masterminded the modus operandi. Subsequently the trio had taken the following day’s flight and flown to Chennai with the money.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mangala Samaraweera

It is laughable that Prime Minister Modi who is claiming to attempt to eliminate black money from India and has banned certain notes but corrupt  officials  all-around jumping on his head. Likewise, the ruling alliance in Sri Lanka which is chanting the anti-corruption mantra seems blind and deaf to the dirty games played by custodians of power   within the government.

Meanwhile, it has come to light that the above-mentioned bureaucrat was involved in series of such incidents but no one has taken action because of the political “power” he is exercising. Three questions can be raised regarding this shaming issue;

• How many times has this person travelled and to how many countries has this person has been, to launder state money?
• What are the direct and indirect assets of this person?
• Who are the people in the government and other governmental institutions supporting this dirty game?

Our attempts to contact Minister Samaraweera to obtain his statement was unfortunately unsuccessful but we would like to keep our request open.

In the meantime, it has been revealed that this bureaucrat is playing an adverse role in attacking selected persons in the country by using a London-based Sri Lankan website. The issue regarding the particular website was questioned recently but the officials from the Criminal Investigation Division strangely kept mum. Most of anti-grift investigations were flawing under their hands and it is no surprise as to why landmark corruption cases were not in the priority listing.