Sakvithi the swindler gets 22 year jail term suspended for 5 years

The one time popular English Teacher Sakvithi Ranasinghe who posed off as an owner of an investment company and swindled thousands of persons for millions of rupees was today handed over a 22 year old rigorous imprisonment term suspended for a five year period by the Colombo High Courts.

Ranasinghe charged for running an illegal Finance Company and offering very high interest rates  pleaded guilty leading to the sentence by Colombo High Court judge Amal Ranaraja

 He was fined Rs 275,000 as well.

His  wife who also charged was sentenced to two years RI suspended for five years and fined Rs 25,000.

Ranasinghe who was educated in a Colombo school started off as an English language tuition master in Ratmalana and around 2003 launched a company known as S.R. Property Sharing Investment (Pvt) Ltd offering very high interest rate.

He claimed to be involved in property business as well, but was accused of issuing counterfeit deeds as well.

The scam was busted by the Central Bank in 2008 during which he was accused of cheating persons for more than Rs 1,000 million deposited by more than 2,100 people.

He fled the country and eventually was arrested on return in 2010.

BY Manopriya Gunasekara