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Immigration arrests 155 overstaying Indians in biggest detection in history
Colombo, July 30 (Daily Mirror) - The Department of Immigration and Emigration today arrested 155 overstaying Indian nationals from a Colombo office and made them pay fines and visa fees amounting to a staggering Rs.33.6 million, making it the largest and highest valued detection in Sri Lankan history.
The DIE’s Investigation Division on information raided a building in Colombo yesterday afternoon, which had been utilised by a local company to run a back office of an international IT company that is involved in online marketing and betting activities.
A senior investigating officer told the Daily Mirror that 155 Indian nationals, all males aged between 25 – 45 years had been placed under custody as all of them had defied their visa conditions.
All the foreigners had arrived in the country with a resident visa and had been overstaying from one month to one year engaging in the work they had been hired for by the local company.
The group had been asked to leave Sri Lanka with immediate effect as the DIE Detention Centre in Welisara does not possess space to house such a large group at once, with already over 100 illegal immigrants being detained there, the sources said.
The authorities had however made the foreigners pay a sum of Rs.33,635,000 to settle their individual visa fee of USD 200 and a fine of USD 500 to the departmental head office.
The senior official said that by urging the foreigners to make this payment the DIE had been able to earn a revenue of Rs. 33.6 million to the government from a single incident, which has also been reported for the first time in history.
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