Will Police take over Customs duty to screen passengers, baggage at BIA in future?

By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana

Competent authorities in charge of the security of the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) are deeply concerned over a controversial move to take over the prime duties of the Sri Lanka Customs to screen passengers for narcotics and illicit goods under the control of the Sri Lanka Police, the Daily Mirror learns.

The move came into light when Customs accused the Police Narcotic Bureau (PNB) of taking the credit for a series of drug detections performed by the former in the recent past that had allegedly been claimed by the latter as their own and releasing information to the public and media.

Sources within the Customs disclose that there was a ‘sinister move’ by the PNB to take the credit of the Customs narcotic detections at the airport into their account, thus publishing them through the media as their own work and ‘outshine’ the hard work of all the other agencies.

According to the usual practice the surveillance of the inbound passengers of an airport, as well as the seizure of illegal items they bring including narcotics come under the purview of the Customs as per the international standards and not police.

Once a traveller enters a country through a sea or airport the first line of screening they have to face is the Immigration counters and subsequently the baggage scanning and clearance from the Customs point to declare goods.

In Sri Lanka when a passenger is arrested by the Customs at an airport with narcotic substances the preliminary inquiries are conducted by the same where drugs are weighed, classified and sealed before being handed over to the PNB along with the suspect or carrier for further investigations.

Since the PNB is vested with the provisions to file legal actions against drug smugglers in local court of law, the suspect and contraband are handed over to the PNB. In an eventuality like this it was the Customs that had made the detection and not any other agency.

A recent report prepared by the Police Department shows that seven such Cocaine detections made by the Customs Narcotic Control Unit at the BIA from January 2024 to November 2024 had been attributed to the PNB and the number of Cocaine detections made by the Customs at BIA has been stated as zero.

This report has been brought to the knowledge of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake during a national defence council meeting held on November 19 last year by the acting IGP Priyantha Weerasooriya as a performance report of the PNB within the BIA and other ports. Thus by indicating the importance of the role of police at an airport compared to all the other agencies and pointing out the necessity to set up new and sophisticated baggage, and passenger scanners even prior to the Customs point to carry out narcotic and other illegal goods checkups.

Customs officials strongly condemn this move as they are specially trained staff to monitor the movements of foreigners, passengers and especially the unlawful perpetrators than any other skilled agency at an airport.

However, upon the facts reported during the defence council the President had instructed to release necessary funds for the security upgrade at the BIA and the Ministry of Finance had allocated Rs.100 million to purchase new scanners and CCTV cameras, which is now proposed to be set up even prior to the Customs point and manned by the police.

Efforts made to contact any police authority for comment over these allegations were futile.