News
Heroin and the helmet heists – how police cracked the case
This week’s breakthrough in the string of island-wide robberies carried out by armed gangs in full-face helmets came from police who had been tracking a drug addict.
That investigation started after two armed men on February 24 stormed the Nations Trust Bank in Kohuwela and got away with Rs 1.5 million, leaving hardly any clues.
“We were left without any clue after the robbery except for the closed circuit TV footage captured by the bank cameras. Several tips were received during the investigations but they did not lead us to any breakthrough,” the Officer in Charge of the Kohuwela Police Station Inspector Chaminda Edirisuriya told the Sunday Times.
A prize catch: A jacket, locally manufactured revolver, modified shotgun, full face helmet among items found in the houses of the suspects. Pix by Nilan Maligaspe
Several police teams were deployed as the robbery gained increasing public attention and was one among about 10 similar cases reported by that time.
“One of the teams was paying attention to a criminal who had been in jail for robberies and was then on bail – a resident of Piliyandala. This man, Jagath Lasantha, was also known to be a drug addict. His whereabouts had not been known for the past five to six months,” the OIC said.
On information gathered from drug addicts and suppliers, police learned that Lasantha had an arrangement with a drug dealer to collect his heroin supplies from a garage in Nugegoda after stocks were provided by the supplier to that location.
‘We instructed the supplier to continue providing heroin in the same manner and we obtained the telephone number of the garage owner who was maintaining contact with the suspect,” Inspector Edirisuriya said.
Analysis of the garage owner’s phone records showed that he was maintaining regular contacts with a resident from Menikhinnam who police ascertained was a Civil Defence Force (CDF) member attached to the Kandy division.
Police put their next ploy into action to gather more details of the suspect. A woman police constable went in as a decoy to build up a “friendship” with the CDF member.
“The constable said she would be travelling to Kandy to visit the Dalada Maligawa and would like to meet up with him (the CDF
Assistant Superintendent of Police W.V. Ginige
member). Accordingly he arrived on a motorcycle, carrying an additional helmet for her,” the OIC said.
Police in plain clothes and in uniform arrested him as soon as he arrived for the rendezvous with the constable. The additional helmet he had brought caught the eyes of the investigators as it was similar to the helmet used by one of the robbers in the Kohuwela bank robbery.
Upon questioning, the CDF member police found that Lasantha, the suspect they were seeking, was a relative of the CDF member and was residing at his house in Menikhinna.
The police got the CDF member to call his wife. She had claimed that Jagath and another friend known as Wasantha Sanjeewa had left for Colombo. Nevertheless, the police surrounded the house around 2 a.m.
“We surrounded the house and then went in and searched the place. The two suspects were missing. Only the CDF member’s wife was in the house,” the inspector said.
“When we searched the surrounding areas, however, we found two people in a three-wheeler that had been parked away from the house. They appeared to be heavily under the effects of heroin – they lacked the strength even to try and escape us.”
Kohuwela OIC Inspector Chaminda Edirisuriya
The police had a prize catch: they found a jacket, a locally manufactured revolver and a modified shotgun all of which had been used in the robberies.
Investigations have revealed that Lasantha was the mastermind behind the robberies of the Nations Trust Bank at Malabe (Rs. 1.4m), the Citizens Development Bank (Rs. 770,000) and 18 similar robberies including those at Food City in Panadura, Sathosa in Kandy, the Abans showroom in Godagama and a wholesale establishment in Aluthgama.
Jagath and Sanjeewa were also the criminals believed responsible for the attempted robbery of the Seylan Bank last week. They had robbed the CDB bank in Moratuwa just hours before they made an attempt to rob the Seylan Bank.
From the haul of about Rs.3.5m from their various attacks they had bought five motorcycles, a three–wheeler, an old car (14-XXXX), and a laptop.
The suspects had planned their robberies to prevent identification. They had used wigs and sticker tattoos so that even if the helmets were taken away the disguises could mislead the police.
The two main suspects along with the CDF member and a man who sold the modified weapons are in custody and being held under detention orders.
Assistant Superintendent of Police W.V. Ginige said this had been one of the most difficult cases to solve as police had been left with very few clues.
He pointed out that banks and financial institutions should improve their security measures in order to avoid or minimise the chances of further robberies.
“We had a meeting with bank managers in the Colombo South division and gave them instructions to improve security but we find that some of them are failing to take proper steps. One such measure is to install alarms so that people in the surrounding area and the police would be alerted in an emergency,” he said.