News
Selling gold: But where’s the gold?
Police decoys bust racket; many arrested including a former Superintendent of Police; hunt for mastermind still on
A broker had approached a businessman from Nugegoda six months ago and had told him there was gold purchased from the state which was available for sale. He was told he could buy 50 kilograms of gold for Rs. 10 million. The businessman was asked to come to a location in Kollupitiya, where he was not shown the gold but was told that a cheque could be issued for Rs. 10 million as a guarantee incase something went wrong with the transaction.
Deputy Inspector General of Police – Colombo North, Vass Gunawardena
Subsequently he was told to visit another location where he was offered Rs. 60 million worth of gold, but once again they had no gold with them. The businessman felt suspicious as he was asked to go to several places and stopped negotiating with the group.
Subsequently the same group had approached another businessman in Badulla. After a few discussions he too felt suspicious and alerted the Army intelligence service.
The Army intelligence in turn alerted Deputy Inspector General of police – Colombo North, Vass Gunawardena about the racket.
Policemen acting as decoys organised to ‘purchase’ gold from the men who told them that they had acquired gold sold by the Central Bank. The decoys were asked to call over at a five star hotel to complete the transaction. A woman and a young boy were present at the hotel to receive them.
The decoys had taken the cash along with them. But as expected the racketeers had not brought the gold along with them. The meeting ended with the arrest of the two suspects. On further inquiries the police learnt that a man in Homagama had the gold and police arrested him too.
The next to be arrested was a former Superintendent of Police from Vijithapura Pelawatte, followed by a string of other arrests.
But, no gold has yet been detected.
“We believe this is a racket to fraudulently collect money from unsuspecting people on the pretext there was gold for sale. We have not found any gold with them,” DIG Gunawardena pointed out.
“However we are looking for another suspect who is reported to be the mastermind,” he said adding that they were charging the suspects with attempt to fraudulently collect money and bring disrepute to the government by claiming they were selling gold held by the state illegally.
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