World Bank team to probe fraudulent deals in SL

A special team from the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative of the World Bank in Sri Lanka to help the government probe mega scale financial frauds and locate the assets stashed away in foreign countries, allegedly by politicians and officials of the former government. The StAR team arrived in the island on Wednesday on a government invitation.

The StAR is a partnership between the World Bank Group and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) that supports international efforts to end safe havens for corrupt funds. StAR works with developing countries and financial centres to prevent the laundering of the proceeds of corruption and to facilitate more systematic and timely return of stolen assets.

Deputy Minister of Policy Planning, Economic Affairs, Child Youth and Cultural Affairs Dr. Harsha de Silva yesterday confirmed that the StAR team is in the country.

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera together with anti corruption expert and senior lawyer J.C. Weliamuna during their recent visit to United States met officials of the World Bank's StAR Unit in the US capital to obtain their assistance with the investigations to hunt for plundered wealth allegedly by certain politicians of the former regime, which are believed to be invested or stashed away in foreign countries.

“We will go after this plundered wealth and the foreign assets bought with the aid of such money. Billions have been stolen and taken out of the country. We are taking steps to bring them back,” Dr. de Silva said.

The Deputy Minister admitted that finding some of the stolen wealth may take years but stressed that the government was determined to expose those responsible and recover the plundered wealth hidden away in foreign nations.

In addition to StAR the government has also sought help from other global financial institutions and several foreign government's to track down the hidden assets.

The government has sought the services of the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Reserve Bank India (RBI), the IMF and several foreign governments in this regard.

The new government has also set up an Anti-Corruption Secretariat which will investigate into large scale corruption and malpractices of the previous government.

The Secretariat, will deal with the large scale corruption and malpractices alleged to have taken place during the previous government and take legal action against such actions. A Financial Crimes Investigation Division under the supervision of the IGP to investigate into large scale financial transactions including money laundering activities has also been established.

The Bribery and Corruption Commission too is investigating in to a large number of related complaints at present.

According to a recent report appearing in some local and foreign media, the government estimates around Rs. 700 billion ($5.31 billion) were taken out of the country in 2013 alone.