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Diplomatic bag racket: EAM aide arrested
View(s):The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) took an office aide in the Security Mail Exchange of the Ministry of External Affairs into custody yesterday in connection with the jewellery that went missing from a diplomatic bag sent from the Sri Lankan embassy in Seoul, South Korea.
The Sunday Times reported last week that the CID was called in to investigate the loss of jewellery that belonged to a Sri Lankan worker who had died in South Korea and had been sent to her family in Sri Lanka through the diplomatic pouch. The head of the Ministry’s Consular division, the director and ten other staff members had been sent on compulsory leave as investigations began.The CID had examined the paperwork relating to the bag and got handwriting analysts during its investigations. The office aide is reported to have admitted to altering the list of items in the bag and taking the jewellery.
Some other items in the bag such as bank cards and some papers had been discarded and the gold chain had been taken to a jewellery shop at Sea Street in the Pettah.
While investigations are continuing as to how the jewellery got into the bag outside the prescribed formalities at the mission in South Korea, the Ministry is reported to be considering a total ban on any jewellery items being sent from Sri Lankan missions overseas in diplomatic bags.