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Biggest heroin haul: Joint probe by Lanka and Pakistan
Narcotics sleuths from Sri Lanka and Pakistan will visit each other’s capitals to probe one of the biggest heroin hauls in history.
The main aim of the detectives will be to unravel drug mafias operating between the two countries and their influential connections.
Police Narcotics Bureau Director Kamal Silva said the PNB’s counterparts in Islamabad had confirmed the visit of Pakistani detectives.
Police sources said yesterday the visiting detectives would question 43 Pakistanis being held in Sri Lankan jails for drug offences.
Similarly, detectives from the Customs narcotics unit will travel to the Pakistani capital for talks with their counterparts. In the detection which has turned out to be a political crisis in Sri Lanka, two container loads of what was declared as grease turned out to be 231 kilograms of heroin. They had been brought in a cargo vessel from Karachi.
In a bid to clear the cargo, the importer of the two container loads had forwarded a letter from the Prime Minister’s office. As investigations intensified, the Premier’s Coordinating Secretary Keerthi Sri Weerasinghe resigned.