Over 2,000 organised drug traffickers netted from WP: Police

Over 2,000 organised criminals were rounded up from the Western Province alone last month under the Police Department’s new drive of netting narcotic traffickers with ‘underworld’ connections, the police said yesterday.

Addressing a special press briefing at the Police Headquarters, one of its top officials said they have identified many members of several organised gangs with links to the ‘underworld’ handling the drug trafficking work of the country’s most urbanised province.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) in charge of Media, Public Relations and IT Range Lal Seneviratne said the police have been very successful in netting these criminals under the department’s new drive of sweeping out drug trafficking from the country.

“We have been successful in implementing the new drive of cleaning Colombo from the narcotics menace on the directions of the Senior DIG in charge of Western Province Deshabandu Tennakoon”.

As per the research done by the police, about 400 wanted gangsters of 25 ‘underworld’ gangs, which are in a very active state had been identified in and out of the Western Province and most of them are relying on drug trafficking as their chief source of income.

Although, various quantities of heroin and other dangerous drugs are being seized every now and then, the police cannot guarantee that all narcotic smuggling sources had been barred as yet.

“We cannot say that we have managed to block all these sources from which the drugs are entering the country, but we have already launched a steady programme to counter those who are engaged in smuggling and trafficking,” DIG Seneviratne said.

Under the second phase of the drive, attention will be focused on the other provinces, he further said. (Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana)