|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 1 February 2004 |
 |
|
 |
News |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
War on exporters of low-quality teas by JAYAMPATHY JAYASINGHE Police along with the Tea Commissioner's Department have declared a war against unscrupulous traders who export inferior quality teas to the Middle Eastern countries to earn big money thus tarnishing the image of Sri Lanka as a quality tea producing country. In the past few weeks a number of warehouses in Colombo North have been raided by the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) in a bid to prevent large quantities of inferior quality teas being exported to the Middle Eastern countries illegally. Several hundred thousand kilos of inferior quality teas have been seized by the police with assistance from the Tea Commissioners Department from warehouses at Grandpass and Wolfendhal Street last week. Although several suspects involved in the racket have been brought before Courts and remanded, many influential Kingpins involved in the racket-are evading arrest, police said. In a lightening raid last Friday, CCD officers seized three container-loads of inferior quality teas amounting to 67,000 kilos about to be taken to the Colombo Harbour to be exported to Iraq. "On a tip-off we raided three container lorries at Mattakuliya at 6.30. A.M. on Friday and found the inferior quality tea. Two persons involved in the racket have been taken into custody. But the owner of the warehouse is absconding," Director, Colombo Crime Division, (SSP) Sarath Lugoda told the Sunday Observer. Officers of the Tea Commissioner's Department who accompanied the police had certified the tea was of inferior quality. But the same officers who visited the warehouse at Mattakkuliya had certified that the tea was of good quality. Subsequently someone had introduced inferior quality tea to be exported to Iraq, Lugoda said. Following a raid last Thursday on another warehouse at Stace Road Mattakuliya, police found 6000 kilos of inferior quality tea being prepared to be exported. Two persons involved in the racket have been taken into custody by the CCD. Police found that the entire quantity of tea had been brought to Colombo from a residence at Gampola. A police team despatched to Gampola on the same day have found another 3,000 kilos of inferior quality tea stacked in a house at Gampola. The owner of the house has been taken into custody. Meanwhile, six suspects who were arrested earlier in connection with 200,000 kgs of inferior quality teas found at a warehouse at Wolfendhal Street, Colombo and 56,306 kilos of inferior quality tea found at a warehouse at Grandpass worth over Rs. 60 million have been remanded till February 1. Tea Commissioner H. D. Hemaratne has said that his department had not issued these persons licences to export such teas. In fact the Tea Commissioner had been threatened with death by some unknown persons for relentlessly pursuing a campaign to stop inferior quality teas being exported illegally to the Middle East. Over 95,000 kilos of inferior quality teas that were to be exported to the Middle East had been confiscated by the Tea Commissioners Department in 2002. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
