{"id":99632,"date":"2020-03-05T16:21:50","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T23:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=99632"},"modified":"2020-03-05T16:21:50","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T23:21:50","slug":"sri-lanka-seizes-record-drugs-haul-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/03\/05\/sri-lanka-seizes-record-drugs-haul-at-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka seizes record drugs haul at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Mailonline<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2020\/03\/05\/10\/wire-25569400-1583403070-730_634x421.jpg\" alt=\"Sri Lankan authorities believe the Indian Ocean island is being used as a trafficking transit point for drugs\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lankan authorities believe the Indian Ocean island is being used as a trafficking transit point for drugs<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two foreign trawlers packed with over $33 million worth of heroin and crystal methamphetamine were seized in Sri Lanka&#8217;s biggest-ever drugs bust at sea, a navy spokesman said Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Troops found 400 kilogrammes (about 880 pounds) of heroin and 100 kilogrammes (about 220 pounds) of the drug &#8220;ice&#8221; on board the two vessels, spokesman Isuru Sooriyabandara said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The street value of the seized narcotics was estimated by officials to be 6,000 million rupees ($33.5 million).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The vessels, as well as a Sri Lankan fishing boat, were Thursday escorted to a harbour near the capital Colombo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sixteen foreign crew and five Sri Lankan crewmen were detained for questioning, Sooriyabandara added. The nationalities of the foreigners were not disclosed by authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The two foreign vessels were trying to offload the drugs onto a Sri Lankan fishing boat,&#8221; Sooriyabandara told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The foreign vessels, which carried no registration, were intercepted in international waters some 1,100 kilometres (687 miles) from Sri Lanka&#8217;s coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sooriyabandara said investigators were checking GPS data on board the vessels to establish the route and the point of origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Authorities said initial investigations suggested the Iran-Pakistan coast was the point of origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2016, the navy arrested 10 Iranians, two Pakistanis and one each from India and Singapore for allegedly trying to smuggle 110 kilogrammes of heroin into the island nation via a trawler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The country&#8217;s previous largest drug haul was in December 2016 when police seized 800 kilogrammes of cocaine on a ship at Colombo&#8217;s port from Saudi Arabia&#8217;s King Abdullah port.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Six months earlier, authorities discovered 301 kilogrammes of cocaine inside a shipping container at Colombo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Authorities believe the Indian Ocean island is also being used as a trafficking transit point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Mailonline Sri Lankan authorities believe the Indian Ocean island is being used as a trafficking transit point for drugs Two foreign trawlers packed with over $33 million worth of heroin and crystal methamphetamine were seized in Sri Lanka&#8217;s biggest-ever drugs bust at sea, a navy spokesman said Thursday. Troops found 400 kilogrammes (about 880 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crimes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}