(COLOMBO) – A serving Deputy Controller at the Sri Lanka’s Emigration and Immigration Department and a former Deputy Controller were arrested after they are alleged to have provided doctored travel documents to help suspected criminals to flee the country.
The Deputy Controller was picked up from a hospital on the outskirts of the commercial capital of Colombo while the second suspect was arrested at the Government Pensions Department where serves as a deputy branch director, police said.
They said the two suspects are alleged to have provided passports with bogus names to suspected criminals in exchange for large fees in order to help them flee the country.
“This is only the tip of the iceberg in corruption that has engulfed the Immigration Department today and we need to carry out more investigations to ascertain the depth of malpractices”, one senior official said.
He said the two suspects are alleged to have operated with the assistance of middlemen both in and out of the Department and that the probe was moving towards that end.
