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Committed over Rs.1.5 Bn financial fraud:
Suspects had fled to India by boat in 2021:
A Sri Lankan couple with Interpol red notices for their arrests in connection with over Rs.1.5 billion of financial fraud was arrested at the Katunayake airport by the police while arriving from India.
Their 14 year old child was also taken into police custody. The suspects, 49-year-old Ahmad Sareem Mohamed Siyab, his 43-year-old wife, Fatima Farsana Markab, and their 14-year-old child, residents of Colombo 5, had fled Sri Lanka to India by boat in 2021 after committing large-scale financial frauds across the country.
At the time, eight travel bans had been issued against them by courts in Colombo, Trincomalee, and Batticaloa.
The father and child were apprehended at noon on December 26 upon arriving at the airport from India on an Indian airline flight. Later that night, the mother was also arrested as she arrived on a separate Indian flight.
Following preliminary investigations, the Katunayake Airport Crime Investigation Division handed the suspects over to the Financial and Commercial Crime Investigation Unit of the Colombo Crime Investigation Division (CID) for further inquiries early on December 27.
T. K. G. Kapila
