Lanka emerging as cocaine transit hub
International cocaine smugglers are increasingly turning to Sri Lankan as a transit hub in Asia, authorities say, after they made a series of seizures of the drug, some smuggled in containers of sugar from Brazil.
Sri Lankan customs have seized six shipments of high-purity South American cocaine in 14 months, including Asia's largest-ever haul of the drug in December, at its main port.
"Sri Lanka is becoming a hub for cocaine as it is a risk-free location with less legal restrictions," a top police official who is aware of investigations into the smuggling told Reuters this week.
"We don't believe that these containers came here mistakenly. Why are these cocaine containers not going to any other country which imports Brazil sugar?"
About 1,770 kg, or $140 million worth of cocaine, had been seized in Sri Lanka, of which 840 kg was found in five sugar shipments from Brazil.
A 928 kg seizure - the largest cocaine haul in Asia - was found in a container of timber on a Colombian ship bound for India.
Police could not say if Sri Lanka was the final destination for any of the cocaine but a government minister said he believed all of the drugs were bound for elsewhere.
"Sri Lanka is a transit point for mass-scale drug dealers," Minister of Law and Order Sagala Ratnayaka told Reuters.
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