By Roy Denish.
Thousands of Sri Lankan families could be facing financial hardship after millions of rupees sent by migrant workers in Israel became trapped in frozen accounts. The sudden shutdown of Global Remit Currency Services has left workers unable to access or transfer their salaries, as an Israeli money-laundering investigation places their hard-earned savings at the centre of a growing legal and financial crisis.
Tens of millions of rupees in hard-earned wages belonging to Sri Lankan migrant workers in Israel have vanished into legal limbo following the sudden regulatory shutdown and asset freeze of a major international money transfer company in Tel Aviv.
The crisis centers on Global Remit Currency Services, a prominent financial platform widely used by foreign laborers to send money home. The Israel Capital Market Authority suspended the company’s operating license and blocked its access to national payment systems following a police investigation into alleged money laundering.
As law enforcement authorities froze tens of millions of shekels held in the company’s accounts, the lifelines of thousands of expatriate families across Sri Lanka were instantly severed.
Many of the affected Sri Lankans work in Israel’s agricultural, construction, and caregiving sectors. They regularly deposit their monthly salaries with the service, relying on rapid cross-border transfers to cover basic living expenses, debt repayments, and medical bills for their families back home. With the funds trapped in frozen accounts, families in Sri Lanka have been left without expected income for weeks.
Global Remit has filed an urgent motion in the Israeli Central District Court seeking a stay of proceedings and the appointment of administrators to manage an estimated 35 million shekels in liabilities. The company claims the sudden government seizure triggered an immediate liquidity crisis that unfairly penalized innocent migrant workers, who make up the vast majority of its 19,000 regular and occasional customers.
According to court filings, approximately 23 million shekels of the total debt consists of customer and third-party funds held by the company. Global Remit is requesting that the court approve an emergency arrangement to transfer its existing foreign-worker remittance operations to Monox, a subsidiary of the 019 Group, in an attempt to protect its customer portfolio and prevent users from permanently migrating to competitors.
The company maintains that it is not balance-sheet insolvent, estimating its total assets at 43 million shekels, but is facing a temporary cash-flow crisis caused by the sudden bank freezes. Judge Merav Ben Ari scheduled a formal hearing, but legal representatives for the firm are pushing to move the date forward, warning that delays will destroy any remaining asset value.
The recovery of the missing remittances now depends on whether the court-appointed administrators can successfully separate legitimate customer deposits from the corporate assets currently tied up in the criminal investigation.
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