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USD 2.5 million money heist - Who will bear the cost?
Colombo, April 24 (Daily Mirror) - The NPP government is now facing a humiliating and serious financial scam which has robbed the people off USD 2.5 million from the state coffer, with senior Finance Ministry officials still unable to provide accurate answers as to where these monies went and who is responsible behind the theft.
In a scene similar to the money heist programme, the government yesterday seemed clueless when it urgently convened a last minute media briefing to explain their embarrassing position and were unable to provide any substantial information when journalists questioned them over the incident.
The Central Bank too has come under severe criticism as to how such a well planned theft could occur over a period of months and how it never got detected by any of its competent officials.
The Daily Mirror learns that this theft amounting to approximately Rs.800 million of public monies was stolen in installments allegedly when hackers were accessing the system and removing the funds without anyone’s notice.
The theft did not happen overnight. The Finance Ministry has admitted that it happened between December 2025 to January 2026, and it only got detected when a similar attempted hacking incident was detected when a payment was to be made to India.
Claiming that disciplinary action has been taken against several officials of the Treasury over the theft, Treasury Secretary Harshana Suriyapperuma said yesterday that the public was not informed of the incident prior as revealing sensitive information would have been an obstacle for law enforcement agencies to trace the cyber criminals. A complaint over the incident was lodged only in March.
He said following the detection, an internal investigation was conducted by the Finance Ministry which looked into previous transactions made to creditors since the commencement of the debt repayment after the debt restructuring process, which revealed that the email system of the Treasury had come under cyber-attack in December 2025 and USD 2.5 million debt payment to an Australian creditor had been obtained by hackers.
He said complaints were also made to Sri Lanka Police Computer Crimes Investigation Division, the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) and the Criminal Investigations department to probe the matter.
The Secretary said disciplinary action have also been taken against several officials of the Treasury following an internal investigation conducted by a committee based on financial regulations and the establishment Code.
He refused to elaborate on whether the officials were interdicted over negligence or involvement in the incident, citing it could hamper ongoing investigations.
The Secretary also refused to respond whether it was a homegrown cyber-attack or outside attack due to ongoing investigations.
He said the Australian High Commissioner was informed of the incident soon after it came to light as per the diplomatic norms and the Australian creditor was also informed as per the debt agreement.
Responding to a question why the Treasury had not done a follow-up as to whether the payment had been credited to the intended creditor and whether the creditor had questioned the defaulting of the debt payment, he said there is no such procedure and that it could be considered in the future if required.
Responding to a question as to how the government is going to settle the payment of the stolen monies if it is not recovered, the Secretary said this decision would be taken only after the completion of the investigations.
"Going forward, we will settle it as early as possible based on the agreement of the two parties,' he said.
Responding to a question whether any submission had been made to the court on the matter, the Secretary said legal action will be taken based on legal advice soon after law enforcement agencies completed the investigations.
Pic by Pradeep Pathirana
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