Children sent abroad for higher education purposes: CID

Controversial child smuggling racket from Sri Lanka to Malaysia

By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana   

The controversial child smuggling racket from Sri Lanka to  Malaysia, which raised concerns of many regarding the fate of the  children being sent abroad, took a fresh turn when the police found that  the children were sent for higher education purposes, the Daily Mirror  learns. 

 
The Police Criminal Investigation Department (CID)  following preliminary investigations on the suspected local facilitator  of the international child smuggling syndicate, a 14-year-old boy and  his father who had been deported from Malaysia this week had learnt that  the child was to be sent abroad for higher education purposes.   
A senior official of the CID’s Human Trafficking, Smuggling  Investigation and Maritime Security Investigation Division (HTSIMSID) told the  Daily Mirror yesterday that they have credible information that all the  17 children, who were said to have been smuggled out of Sri Lanka to  Malaysia in the first few months of 2023, were sent for the same reason.    

The detective ruled out any possibilities of smuggling  children for any adoption or in the means of retrieving any physical  organs and said the parents and the perpetrators of the organised crime  have resorted to such means as the Sri Lankan passport has poor  recognition in certain Western countries.   

As a result, the children were first been accompanied to  Malaysia on genuine Sri Lankan passports and then they were sent to  countries like the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Switzerland for  higher studies with forged Malaysian passports.   

For this the perpetrators have charged from Rs.7 to 9 million for each child and to ensure that they safely land in the  foreign country.   

The official did not rule out the fact that the relatives  of the children who are from the Tamil Diaspora in the West have  financially supported the latter, as all the reported child smuggling  cases were reported from the North and East areas.   

The Malaysian immigration who arrested the 14-year-old  child and his father from Jaffna and a person who accompanied them to  Kuala Lumpur from Colombo were deported back to Sri Lanka on Wednesday  morning.   
The Department of Immigration and Emigration carried  out an extensive investigation into the case tracked down the chief  local facilitator accompanying the child and the father to  Malaysia last Monday and let them board a flight to Kuala Lumpur and  alerted the Malaysian authorities once they left the country.   

The deported trio was received by the local immigration  authorities and statements were recorded before they were being handed  over to the CID Unit at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) on  Wednesday evening.   
The CID further said that the probe is continuing to  determine the main operatives behind the international human smuggling  syndicate.