The Sri Lankan police last December arrested a Bangladesh citizen by the name of Shurjo Moni with 32 kilos of heroin.
Moni, who is currently in Sri Lankan police custody hails from Lalmonirhat and was a house help in Dhaka before getting involved in the shady world of drug trafficking.
The twenty-eight-year old acted as a drug carrier for a Choyes Ahmed the owner of a buying house.
According to the Department of Narcotics Control, Shurjo Moni went to Colombo from Malaysia in October of 2018.
Shurjo Moni hails from Lalmonirhat’s Kaliganj Upazila, a narcotics control official told Bangla Tribune.
“Shurjo Moni and her brother left for Dhaka due to their father’s financial condition,” he said.
He added that Moni was working in an apparel factory when she met Choyes who offered her a job at his buying house. She was forced to stay with him at his house and issued her a passport.
She was made to travel in the Malaysia-Sri Lanka route and she visited Colombo four times and police suspect that she was doing so as a drug mule.
Sri Lankan authorities gave Bangladesh preliminary information on Moni right after the arrest. After questioning her they arrested Md Jamal Uddin and Dewan Rafiul Islam on Dec 31. The police seized 272 kilograms of heroin and 5 kilograms of cocaine worth Tk 1.52 billion from them.
Criminal Investigation Division (CID) Superintendent of police (SP) Md Iqbal filed a case with Uttara police over the matter.
Meanwhile, on Jan 5, CID and narcotics control arrested Choyes Ahmed from a house in Uttara.
After a background check at their home towns, it was revealed that neither Moni and Rafiul, nor any of their family had any prior records.
On the other hand, Jamal Uddin hails from Bogura. According to Bogura police files, he is drug peddler undergoing trial.
In August of 2017, the Detective Branch (DB) of police arrested Jamal with 30 pieces of contraband methamphetamine based yaba.
On January of 2019, a six-member probe team went to Sri Lanka and returned to Dhaka on Jan 21.
The team comprised of a foreign ministry official, one CID, one Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and two narcotics control officials.
“We met with the Sri Lankan police,” said Additional Director of Department of Narcotics Control Abdur Razzak who was part of the probe team.
“We questioned the three people who have been arrested and all of them used to work for Choyes Ahmed,” he added.
Razzak said that they are basically carriers and that the CID will probe the matter further.
Quoting Sri Lankan police, he said that the drugs enter Sri Lanka through Afghanistan and Sri Lanka and sometimes through Malaysia and Thailand.
Another CID official said that international drug traffickers from Dubai and Thailand control the drug market in Asia and since there is a large demand for it in Sri Lanka, they smuggle the drugs through land or waterways.