Drug kingpin drops names by the dozen:

Siddique's tractor ploy comes a croppper

By Kurulu Kariyakaranawana

Heroin is a vicious drug that seeps into the veins of the Sri Lankan social system through various ports unlawfully. Throughout the past it had been smuggled into the country by numerous methods which authorities caught on to quickly. The narcotics that came in oranges, potatoes, tins of grease and iron bolts have finally arrived inside tractor engines making it the latest modus operandi.

Wele Suda's secret warehouse

PNB officials checking a tractor using sniffer dogs

Pointing to the empty gear box

Sleuths ripping open tractor wheels

Wele Suda

Police Narcotics Bureau, the authority specialised in dealing with matters pertaining to the trafficking of narcotics, opened a large warehouse in Sinharamulla, Kelaniya last Monday, which was later displayed to the media.

The press gave a wide publicity to 26 Massey Ferguson tractors found neatly stored inside the warehouse which was used to have smuggled hundreds of kilos of Heroin into the country.

The tractors had been mounted on wooden structures with wheels dismantled and stored on the side. The PNB officials who were in plain clothing were busy checking the machinery and explained the media how the responsible parties for this illicit imports had used the tractors to carry narcotics.

Gear box

A PNB Constable who led his experienced narcotics sniffer dog Rocks towards the back of a heavy land vehicle was gathering evidence. Officials removed the driver’s seat of the tractor to display the gear box that lies underneath. To our amazement the top metal cover of the gear box had been torn open and the wheels within had been carved out making a spacious hollow.

The officials explained that the smugglers had carefully packed at least two 50kilogram packs of Heroin inside this huge gap on which the differential of the tractor used to sit. Likewise, all 26 tractors had been used for the same purpose as the gear box in every vehicle had been cut and opened in a similar manner.

Mohamed Siddique

Apart from this the officials learnt that the huge rear wheels of each tractor had also been used to transport Heroin. Polythene packets containing the drugs had been laid in between the large tyre and its tube which had been semi inflated to deceive a watchful eye.

With the evidence in hand the police figured that the entire fleet of tractors and its wheels would have been used to smuggle over thousand kilograms of heroin from a foreign country from time to time.

The detectives later found that the entire consignment of tractors with concealed narcotics had been imported from Pakistan since 2013 by several foreign nationals now identified to be of British and Pakistani origin who have fled the country sometime back.

It was revealed that the entire racket had been masterminded by the most wanted local drug kingpin at large Mohamed Siddique who had sent the batches of heroin from Pakistan when requested by the recently captured drug lord Gampola Vidanalage Samantha Kumara alias Wele Suda.

Sending a consignment of tractors to a country for any purpose is not a simple task. Even for sale or genuine business venture importing such heavy machinery involves a series of formalities from harbour to the warehouse. But how Siddique planned this illicit venture involving a dangerous drug is truly ingenious.

Probe

According to PNB sources it all began just six months ago. In September last year police chief IGP N K Illangakoon was tipped off about a suspicious warehouse in Sinharamulla in Kelaniya which had stored machinery that contained narcotics in them.

The IGP passed the information down to his subordinate Director Police Narcotics Bureau SSP Kamal Silva to carry out a probe.

SSP Silva deployed a team under an Assistant Superintendent of Police and instructed them to launch a surveillance operation. The PNB officials secretly sought an approval by Mahara Magistrate to conduct an inquiry and with that deployed several undercover agents in the vicinity of the warehouse.

It was a recently built establishment with modern features and almost similar to a fortress with tall walls and gates covering the front compound and the large metal doors fixed to the warehouse entrance.

Since the premises was seemed to be locked always with hardly any operation was noticed the PNB sleuths decided to trace the owner of the building.

The owner of the warehouse a resident of Kelaniya cooperated with the sleuths upon their initial inquiry about the building and who had occupied it.

The owner finished completing the warehouse in a prime block of land he owned facing Biyagama Road in early 2013 and was looking for a prospective tenant.

He was soon approached by a broker who introduced him to a British national named Jeremy Douglas who would willing to buy his property for a three-year contract on rent. Jeremy who introduced himself to be an importer of heavy machinery and land vehicles was searching for a spacious but highly secluded location. At the first glance of the fortress like warehouse he fell in love with it as it would cater to all his expectations.

Three-year contract

The foreigner who brought his attorney to sign the papers for the tenancy agreement with the building owner was told by the solicitor that a heavy tax would be imposed if a foreigner enters into a local business agreement. As a remedial measure Jeremy then decides to nominate his trustworthy assistant Neil.

The warehouse was then rented out to Neil on a three-year contract from April 2013, with the condition of paying a monthly rent of Rs.190, 000.

A sum of Rs.650, 000 was paid in advance as key money. Both parties shook hands on the closure of a sound deal and parted.

Going back to the inquiry the PNB officials who learnt about the occupancy of the warehouse from its owner decided to approach the man whom he had signed the contract papers with.

Neil is a trishaw driver by profession who would look for his hires mainly in Borella area.

Having obtaining his address from the warehouse owner the officials meet Neil at his residence in Biyagama. When inquired upon Neil frankly tells how he accidentally met Jeremy in Borella.

Jeremy who got on to his trishaw one day in early 2013 on a hire quickly becomes friendly with Neil who has a very outgoing personality and good language skills to comfortably communicate in English. Having picked his mobile phone number Jeremy continues the acquaintance to make his quick rides with the trustworthy Neil.

Neil was even summoned for airport pick-ups and drops by Jeremy who often travels out of the country. During one of these trips only he asks Neil to find a warehouse with ample space to store heavy machinery. He reveals his plans to start a tractor distributing business in Sri Lanka. Neil finds a broker and helps to find the owner of the warehouse in Kelaniya.

Once the warehouse was taken Jeremy brings six Massey Ferguson tractors to be stored in it. But little did Neil know that Jeremy already had a secret warehouse in Armour Street from where the six tractors had been transferred to the Kelaniya warehouse.

In the meantime Jeremy interviews a man named Deepal to be recruited to his company as a Manager to carry out the local business in his absence.

Deepal who had worked in several sea ports around the world as a career freight clearing agent had lot of experience in handling and release of imported tractors from the port through Customs and arranging Letters of Credit involving banks.

He was offered an attractive package by Jeremy with a salary of Rs.75, 000 with an additional fuel allowance. Deepal was introduced to Neil by Jeremy saying that he would be in assistance to the trade at any given point. Having obtaining details the PNB sleuths contacts Deepal to learn more about Jeremy.

Deepal revealed the police how he opened an LC with a renowned tyre importing agent in Kelaniya to import Massey Ferguson tractors under their name as it would be tricky to register a new business to do so. With Jeremy's instructions Deepal manages to persuade the tyre dealer to import tractors with a commission of Rs.100, 000 per every imported tractor.

Since then tractors started arriving at the Colombo Port in the size of two or three units at a time. Deepal had successfully cleared them from the authorities by producing relevant documentation and shifted them to the warehouse.

Doubts

The new tractors had been imported from Pakistan by international trader Jeremy who had revealed it to be part of his charitable activities to be distributed in the North and the East through NGOs. By June 2014 Jeremy had imported 26 tractors to the warehouse. But little did they know that each tractor contained a consignment of heroin worth millions of rupees.

By early 2014 doubts have been generating in the minds of Deepal and Neil about Jeremy as he was not planing to register and distribute the tractors as intended. Jeremy who senses this difference in his subordinates sends two brand new tractors apart from the usual ones he sent.

The wheels were intact in these tractors which were instructed to be registered and sold to an unknown party as a cover up to the illegitimate trade known only by Jeremy.

In Late 2013 Jeremy introduces a Pakistani national to Deepal as his business partner. The man named Imran started to visit the place on and off with a set of keys to the warehouse given to him by Deepal on the instructions of Jeremy.

Soon neighbours and the people in the area noticed weird activities going on in the warehouse premises where unknown luxury vehicles like SUVs were coming and going from time to time.

Even after the PNB surveillance was commenced in September last year the sleuths have noticed some suspicious movements by unidentified personnel.

In a bid to search the warehouse the officials obtained the master key from the owner and tried to open the gates but in vain as the occupants have changed the locks. Since breaking in to the property would complicate matters and rouse the suspicion of the occupants, they kept monitoring the place at close quarters.

Imran

One morning in early December the sleuths under cover noticed a young man with a seemingly foreign appearance carrying a backpack arrive at the place and try to enter it.

For some reason he failed to do so. He returned with a locksmith and tries to change the lock. However, noticing this the people in a neighbouring boutique intervene asking for the identity of the unknown youth who was identified to be a Pakistani national.

With the obstruction, the youth backs down and leaves the place with narcotics officials on his tail. He was seen making several phone calls before going to a hotel on the Marine Drive in Wellawatte and joins another man who was already residing there.

The officials inquired about the youth from the hotel management to learn that he arrived on the previous day to meet a man already residing there by the name of Imran. The observing officers noticed that the duo leave the hotel room for some matter and in that interval they enter the room having informed the management.

The officials find three tractor keys in the room of which they quickly copy to a bar of soap before leaving the room intact. They learnt that the youth had left the country the same night, whereas Imran too had left shortly thereafter.

The PNB officials without further ado broke into the premises to find 26 tractors with its wheels and tyres dismantled. A quick search of the engines enables them to find the hollow gear box to hide heroin.

This was confirmed by the sniffer dog that went after traces of heroin on the vehicles.

Having obtained the passport copy of Imran from the Wellawatte Hotel the detectives were given a passport copy of another Pakistani national named Ikram who had left the country sometime back.

Most wanted

The officers gathering evidence from other related narcotics cases also determined that Jeremy, Imran and Ikram had acted as courier agents of the international narcotics trade to import the goods of the number one on the PNB most wanted list Mohamed Siddique who is believed to have sought refuge in Peshawar, Pakistan.

The narcotics couriers had been backed by an ally of Siddique named Akilash alias Ifthikar who is also in the wanted list.

Ifthikar was later found to be the person who loaded the Toyota Prius hybrid car with 85 kilos of heroin which was seized by the Police Special Task Force personnel on June 11, 2014 on Biyagama Road in Kelaniya.

Having checked the CCTV footages of Cargills Food City on the Biyagama Road where the car was parked for sometime until the message was delivered by the drug lords, the PNB sleuths notices a man with a familiar face who spends about several hours in the vicinity. He was found to be Imran who had masterminded the transfer of heroin from the Sinharamulla warehouse.

The 85 kilos of heroin removed from the warehouse was found to be the last batch of narcotics transferred by the suspects.

The heroin which was imported to Sri Lanka by Siddique was believed to have been transferred to the men handled by Wele Suda from time to time.

It was remarkable to understand that Siddique and Suda were operating this last transfer between their men through the phone from Pakistan.

Behind bars

PNB files reveal that 14 Sri Lankan men had been issued with Interpol Red Notices for Heroin trafficking for the past decade. The names included prominent characters as Kimbulaela Guna, Mohamed Siddique, Wele Suda, Thel Baala and Lal Peiris alias Kudu Lal.

Siddique who was from Maligawatta became a leading dealer in the local drug scene fled the country in 2006 to escape arrest.

He was residing in Pakistan when his wife was named Amla actively engaged in the same trade who is at present behind bars for her involvement in smuggling heroin in iron bolts.

Siddique who is married to a young Pakistani woman who has direct connections to a heroin manufacturing plant had a long term acquaintance with Wele Suda. He was reported to have given accommodation to Wele Suda in his lodge in Peshawar when the latter fled the country in 2011.

Siddique who is in his early fifties had even delivered heroin to Suda's father, a notorious Kasippu dealer in Dehiwela turned heroin trader in the early nineties as exposed by the Sunday Observer a few weeks ago.

Siddique associated Suda as his Sri Lankan buyer and distributor concerning his sharp senses in the game of narcotics and trustworthiness from his childhood.

With the surrender of number two of the most wanted drug barons of the list, Devundara Thamil who was notorious for smuggling 400 to 500 kilos of heroin at once into the country through trawlers, the PNB is now much focused on the top dog Mohamed Siddique.

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Heroin (diacetylmorphine or morphine diacetate)also known as diamorphine and commonly known by its street names of H, smack, boy, horse, brown, black, tar, and others is an opioid analgesic originally synthesized by C.R. Alder Wright in 1874 by adding two acetyl groups to the molecule morphine, which is found naturally in the opium poppy. It is the 3,6-diacetyl ester of morphine. Administered intravenously by injection, heroin is two to four times more potent than morphine and is faster in its onset of action.

Source - internet

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Heroin trace detector worth Rs 30m unusable

The head of the Customs Narcotics Control Unit and the Joint Task Force DDC Athula Lankadeva revealed that the millions of worth Trace Detectors imported from Canada to detect Heroin vapour in the containers is unusable due to certain technical glitches.

To check daily arriving cargo for narcotics without opening the containers that involve many formalities, Sri Lanka Customs was given a sophisticated machine that could check any Heroin vapour in a consignment. The latest equipment being used in advance ports in the world had been invented by United Nations Office on Drug Control (UNDOC) under the patronage of World Customs Organisation.

Trace Detectors are a type of detectors that could suck out the air of a cargo container to examine the iron molecules that contains within so to understand what type of chemicals are being contained inside without opening the container. This technology is called Iron Mobility Spectrometric. The mobility level of each molecule is different and the Trace Detectors could simply tell whether the container is hiding any narcotics, ballistics or weapons.

Because of the problem encountered the detector cannot be used in tracing Heroin and the authorities have to rely on traditional methods, Lankadeva said.

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All warehouses are searched – SSP Kelaniya Division

When asked whether the local police had any idea about what was going on in the raided warehouse in Sinharamulla, SSP Kelaniya Division C E Widisinghe told the Sunday Observer that there was no proper mechanism in place to understand as to what has been happening in all these warehouses.

The SSP said that his division is an industrial area housing 150 warehouses of all kinds. From Peliyagoda to Kelaniya, Sapugaskanda and Biyagama Free Trade Zone number of private warehouses provide storage facility for products like tea, textile, cement, scrap iorn and some maintained by the CWE.

Although these warehouses are being registered with the area police station, until now there nobody knew who were attached to them and what really was going on. So I deployed a special team to visit all the warehouses in my division and collect details of the owner, the trade and the employees.

It is alarming to know that so far we have searched about 15 warehouses and during these detections we seized 20 grams of Heroin on several occasions, SSP Widisinghe said.