(COLOMBO) – The authorities in Sri Lanka is to deploy undercover policemen inside most of the country’s prisons in a desperate bid to stamp out crime syndicates operating behind bars, the island’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) Deshabandu Tennakoon said on Friday.
He said 15 police teams will infiltrate an equal number of remand jails in the country that are known to have a high concentration of criminal activities.
The chief aim is to identify the individuals, their contacts on the outside and the modus operandi of their criminal activities, Tennakoon said.
He added despite being in remand, the organized criminals still operate their underworld activities and drug trafficking via the prisons system sometimes with the assistance of errant prison guards and so on.
The undercover officers have been provided all the necessary facilities to identify the network and individuals providing assistance for criminals to continue organized crimes and drug trafficking while behind bars.
He said the police have identified 20 organized criminal gangs operating in 62 police areas and operations have already been launched to go after them. “We have identified several members of those gangs who have left the country and steps are being taken to bring them back with the help of Interpol,” he said.
Tennakoon said the Sri Lanka Police had also laid a net to arrest the underworld figures operating from overseas. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Attorney General’s Department (AG’s) are working to issue red notices on wanted criminals and also to initiate legal measures to extradite the criminals into the country.
