155 overstaying Indians arrested from Colombo office

• The foreigners were urged to pay Rs.33.6 million as fines and visa fees  

The Department of Immigration and Emigration yesterday arrested 155 overstaying Indian nationals from a Colombo office and had made them pay fines and visa fees amounting to 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 utilized 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 said that 155 Indian nationals, all males in their ages between 25 – 45 years had been placed under custody as all of them had defied their visa conditions.   

All the foreigners have 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 by the local company to carry out.   

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 by urging the foreigners to make this payment the DIE had been able to earn revenue of Rs.33.6 million to the government from a single incident, which is also reported for the first time in history.