Sri Lanka’s capital market regulator is currently acquiring the tactics used by the country’s intelligence agencies to tackle market misconduct, a top official said. 
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Thilak Karunaratne said they had obtained the services of a retired deputy inspector general (DIG) of the country’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to train the SEC employees in the “art of questioning”.
“We are getting the services of a retired DIG of the CID to train the employees in the Investigations Department, so that they know how to properly extract information,” Karunaratne said.
The SEC completely overhauled its investigations division by transferring out the existing officials to other departments in December last year. 
“We haven’t recruited anybody new to man the investigations division. What we’ve done is getting officials from other departments within the SEC with some experience in investigations work. They will be trained to carry out their duties,” Karunaratne said.
He said the SEC would be soon advertising to hire a director to head the department. 
Investigations had been a sore point for the SEC as in its history no capital market offender had been sent to jail. 

The legal shortcomings in the existing SEC Act as well as the lack of enthusiasm and the capability to pursue complicated market misconduct cases had often been cited as the reasons for this. 
However, Karunaratne said with the independence of the SEC now being assured, he plans to have a proactive investigations division that ensures fair market practices. 
Karunaratne was asked to resign as the SEC Chairman by the higher echelons of the previous government when he started to investigate the stock market activities of some of the highly connected high-net-worth investors. (IS)