5 August 2020 12:00 am
By T. Farook Thajudeen and Yoshitha Perera
The CID has informed Court that it found deposits amounting to some Rs.32.5 million in bank accounts belonging to the 13 Police Narcotic Bureau (PNB) personnel, who were arrested on charges of having links with the drug dealers.
The detectives requested Colombo Chief Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne to permit them to deposit the money in the Court’s case production account.
Filing a fresh ‘B’ report on money laundering by the 13 suspects, the CID said it had discovered transaction details regarding Rs.24.19 million in a bank account belonging to second suspect Saman Kumara Jayasinghe.
“This amount in his account has been withdrawn on 53 occasions,” the CID said adding that it had discovered 32 counterfeit 5,000-rupee notes from the possession of two police constables named as the 10th and the 11th suspects in the case.
The CID informed the Magistrate that it had found the same serial number on the 32 counterfeit notes and requested for an order to obtain a report on the notes from the Central Bank.
The Magistrate directed the CID to submit its request at the next hearing date because the suspects were not produced in Courts at yesterday’s proceedings.
The CID also informed the Magistrate that it was conducting an investigation to check whether the suspects were also involved in printing counterfeit notes.