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CID exposes huge land rackets
View(s):By Damith Wickremasekara
Racketeers including notaries public and land sale dealers have been taken into custory for large-scale illegal land grabbing in Colombo and the suburbs, Criminal Investigations Department (CID) detectives said. At least 30 such groups have been arrested so far after the CID probed some 4,300 complaints made following a Defence Ministry announcements calling on victims to inform the CID, the detectives said.
CID Inspector A.S. Karunatillake said most of the complaints had been from Colombo and the CID had completed investigations into 1,292 cases so far.
Among the properties which had been illegally grabbed was a Rs 40 million house and land originally owned by a former socialist politician in Kollupitiya. The persons who had illegally acquired the land had claimed that they had received a deed of gift.
However, a CID investigation found that documents had been tampered with at the Land Registry while the owners were living in the United States.
In another case, investigations revealed that when a businessman was trying to dispose of a 200-acre land at Kadirana in Negombo, a group had filed a false case claiming ownership of part of the land. Later they had negotiated to withdraw the case if the land was sold to them at Rs. 40 million. The estimated value of the land was Rs. 90 million.
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