Sarath Obeysekera 

Sri Lanka’s Richard in the Day, Daniel in the Night” Immigration Comedy

Sri Lanka proudly announces record tourist arrivals every month. Ministers smile, airports are busy, and hotels celebrate. But somewhere between the arrivals terminal and the Port City construction sites, something unusual seems to be happening.

A man arrives with a visa saying Assistant Cook.”

By morning, he is expertly preparing noodles for construction workers.

By midnight, perhaps he is allegedly preparing phishing emails for somebody’s bank account.

As the old Sinhala saying goes:
Daaval Richard, Re Daniel.”
(During the day he is Richard, at night he becomes Daniel.)

Today, perhaps it should be updated to:
Morning Noodles, Night-time Hackers.”

Sri Lanka appears to have become the world’s easiest location for mysterious job descriptions.

One arrives as a cook.”
Another as a cultural assistant.”
One more as a technical adviser for dumplings.”

Yet somehow, many seem to possess advanced computer skills, multiple laptops, encrypted phones, and enough networking equipment to start a small intelligence agency.

Of course, genuine Chinese and Vietnamese workers contribute greatly to development projects. Many are hardworking and law-abiding. But recent reports and arrests involving cybercrime networks operating from apartments, hotels, and rented houses raise serious questions about loopholes in our immigration and monitoring systems.

When giant foreign-funded projects came to Sri Lanka — ports, conference halls, highways, towers, and now smart cities — we rolled out the red carpet. That is understandable. Development is necessary.

But perhaps we rolled it out so enthusiastically that we forgot to check who was walking on it.

In the old days, countries feared foreign armies entering through ports.

In modern times, perhaps the invasion comes through Wi-Fi routers.

Yesterday they built harbours.

Today they may be building server farms.

Tomorrow maybe somebody will accidentally mortgage the Central Bank through a mobile app.

One wonders whether some companies sponsoring temporary work visas even know who exactly they are bringing in. A company requests ten cooks; suddenly twenty IT-savvy culinary specialists” arrive carrying gaming computers larger than microwave ovens.

Sri Lankan officials then proudly stamp passports while asking the most important national security question:

Chicken or seafood noodles?”

Meanwhile, ordinary Sri Lankans struggle for visas to travel abroad. They produce bank statements, birth certificates, utility bills, school reports, blood groups, vaccination records, and perhaps even grandparents’ wedding photos.

But here, some foreigners seem to enter with a frying pan and leave with cryptocurrency profits.

The concern is not about nationality. Cybercrime has no nationality. Criminals can come from anywhere — local or foreign. The issue is whether Sri Lanka has adequate systems to monitor:

• who enters,
• who sponsors them,
• where they stay,
• what they actually do,
• and whether cook” suddenly becomes cyber consultant” after sunset.

A modern economy needs foreign workers and investors. But it also needs intelligent immigration controls, inter-agency coordination, cyber monitoring, and accountability from companies sponsoring visas.

Otherwise, one day Sri Lanka may proudly advertise:

Visit Beautiful Sri Lanka — Beaches, Tea, Wildlife, and International Cybercrime Headquarters.”

Port City is supposed to become a global financial hub.

Let us hope it does not also become:
Silicon Valley for Scam Artists.”

Sri Lanka must avoid paranoia, racism, or hysteria. Genuine investors and workers are welcome and necessary. But national security cannot operate on blind trust and noodle recipes alone.

Because in today’s digital world, the man stirring noodles in the daytime may also be stirring trouble online at night. And unfortunately,

And unfortunately, antivirus software alone cannot solve immigration policy failures.

— Sarath Obeysekera