Foreign Cigarette Smuggling Foiled in City; Phone Smuggling Ring Busted at Katunayake Airport

Sri Lanka Customs has foiled two major attempts to smuggle foreign cigarettes into the country via Katunayake Airport. On May 13, a 31-year-old Sri Lankan man was arrested with 32,000 cigarettes valued at Rs. 4.8 million, arriving from Sharjah. Just two days later, on May 15, a 26-year-old Chinese businesswoman was apprehended at the same airport with a consignment of cigarettes worth over Rs. 5 million. In a separate incident, on May 17 or 18, a 35-year-old Chinese national was arrested in Kollupitiya with 540 sticks of duty-free cigarettes, following a raid by the Colombo South Divisional Criminal Investigation Unit.