May 5, 2013, 10:15 pm


By Norman Palihawadane


The Peliyagoda Crime Division, on Saturday, busted a gang of security forces deserters, who had cheated people to the tune of millions of rupees on the promise of selling them gold jewellery, which they claimed to have recovered from the LTTE during the closing stages of the war.


A senior police officer told The Island that they arrested 11 persons, including three deserters from Army, Navy and the Air Force and a retired Superintendent of Police, who headed the gang.


The wife of a former leading cricketer, too, was a member of the gang, the police said.


Their modus operandi was to contact rich persons, including wives of famous persons and convince them that there were stocks of gold jewellery in their possession. The fraudsters have told their victims that they left the services with those ‘spoils of war’ and the gold could be purchased at a lower price than in the market.


Once the customers turned up to purchase the gold, the operatives took the money and disappeared. The victims could not complain to the police as the deal was illegal.


Army intelligence units informed the police and sent decoys to purchase the gold. Members of the Peliyagoda Crime Division, under the instructions of DIG Vass Gunawardena, approached the bogus gold sellers and visited them with the promised money—one million rupees—at a hotel in Colombo named by the fraudsters. As they waited there, a person appeared and wanted to see the money. After they were convinced that the potential buyers had arrived with the promised money, the imposters accompanied them to the residence of the retired SP in Nugegoda.


The retired SP told them that the gold had been taken to another place at Homagama and took them to a house of a navy deserter there.


Later, they were accompanied back to Colombo where a woman told them that the gold had been taken somewhere else and requested the buyers to proceed there. At that point the racketeers were taken into custody. The female was later identified as the wife of a former leading national cricketer. She and the driver of her car, too, were taken into custody.


Police officer said that investigations were in progress and two other suspects who were evading arrest would be tracked down.
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