Seven arrested over BIA gold theft

31 March 2011 10:43 am Views - 6761

Seven employees of a local airline were arrested by the police over the disappearance of gold worth around Rs.60 million from a vault in the Cargo Terminal at the Bandaranaike International Airport.

The police also recovered the entire gold and jewellery during the investigation. Police also found cash worth around Rs.2.2 million that the suspects had obtained by selling couple of gold biscuits, police media spokesman Prishantha Jayakody said.

The investigations are conducted by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID). Two senior customs officers have been appointed by the Director General of Customs Sudharma Karunaratne to investigate the incident as it was reported in the Cargo Terminal.

Gold slabs and biscuits worth more than Rs.50 million, imported by a jeweller at Sea Street in Colombo went missing from the air cargo village of the Bandaranaike International Airport on March 21. Altogether there were 126 gold biscuits and gold weighing around 15 kilos. (Supun Dias)