Nine Chinese nationals were arrested at Sri Lanka’s main international airport on Thursday while attempting to smuggle in communication equipment allegedly intended for cyberscam operations, customs authorities said. The arrests come two weeks after police detained 152 foreign nationals, mostly Chinese, for allegedly running a cyberscam operation out of a hotel in the island’s northwest.
Following those arrests, the Chinese embassy in Colombo said it was working closely with local authorities to prevent its nationals from carrying out scamming operations in the country. The latest airport incident saw Sri Lankan officers recover 383 used mobile phones, 101 tablet computers, six Wi-Fi routers and GPS trackers from the arriving Chinese nationals, a customs spokesman said.
“The equipment was taped to the bodies of the suspects,” the spokesman added, noting the haul was valued at 24 million rupees ($78,000) and was confiscated.
Organised criminal gangs have used casinos, hotels and fortified compounds across Southeast Asia as bases to carry out sophisticated online scams, defrauding people through cryptocurrency investment schemes and fake romantic relationships, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Until a crackdown this year, the region was the epicentre of the multibillion-dollar online scam industry in which hundreds of thousands of fraudsters — some trafficked, others willing workers — cheat internet users globally with romance and cryptocurrency investment schemes. “Due to Sri Lanka’s well-developed telecommunications infrastructure, favourable geographical location and relatively lenient visa policies, some telecom fraud gangs have moved to Sri Lanka,” the Chinese embassy in Colombo said recently.
“That is why such cases have been increasing in Sri Lanka recently,” it added, noting that the scammers had been targeting Chinese nationals at home.
