COLAMBO: Sri Lanka police have seized 662 kilograms of heroin during the past two years, statistics released by police reveal. The police also made 46, 716 heroin related arrests during those two years. According to statistics, 350 kilograms of heroin were seized during 2013. A total of 23, 665 suspects were also arrested during 2013 for possession of heroin. During 2014, police also seized 312 kilograms of heroin up to December 26. According to police, 23, 106 heroin related arrests were made in 2014.
Police Spokesman SSP Ajith Rohana said there had been a lot of talk among the public regarding the illegal drug trade in recent times. He said the fact that many were talking about the drug trade and drug dealers during the past two years was because it was during this period that police were finally able to locate where most of the heroin was coming from.
“It was during this period that we managed to identify that most of the heroin was being shipped to Sri Lanka on containers from Pakistan. This led to seizures of large hauls of heroin. We were also able to identify the main drug dealers who were involved in smuggling the drugs to Sri Lanka,” he explained.
After identifying the major drug kingpins, police were able to reach out to Interpol and get the agency to issue ‘Red Notices’ on 10 drug kingpins who were currently operating from overseas. The police spokesman said as a result of these red notices, it would be extremely difficult for these suspects to travel between various countries as they would be on file at airports and ports.
