Nine Chinese nationals were arrested at Sri Lanka’s main international airport on Thursday as they tried to smuggle communications equipment suspected of being intended for cyber fraud operations, customs authorities said.
The arrests come two weeks after police arrested 152 foreign nationals, mostly Chinese, for allegedly running a cyber operation out of a hotel in the northwest of the island.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told AFP in Beijing on Thursday that they were ready to “cooperate to jointly combat criminal activities, including online fraud”.
In the latest incident, Sri Lankan officers recovered 383 used mobile phones, 101 tablet computers, six Wi-Fi routers and GPS trackers from nine arriving Chinese nationals, a customs spokesman said.
“The devices were taped to the bodies of the suspects,” the spokesman added, noting that the amount was estimated at 24 million rupees ($78,000) and was confiscated.
Separately, six other Chinese passengers were arrested Thursday as they allegedly tried to smuggle 75,900 cigarettes packed in their luggage, officials said.
The cigarettes, worth 11.3 million rupees ($37,000), were confiscated.
Organized crime gangs have used casinos, hotels and fortified compounds across Southeast Asia as bases to carry out sophisticated online fraud, duping 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 epicenter of the multibillion-dollar online fraud industry, in which hundreds of thousands of fraudsters — some trafficked, others willing workers — scam internet users globally.
“Due to Sri Lanka’s well-developed telecommunications infrastructure, favorable geographical location and relatively lenient visa policies, several telecom fraud gangs have relocated to Sri Lanka,” the Chinese embassy in Colombo said recently.
“That is why such cases have increased in Sri Lanka recently,” he added, noting that the scammers had targeted Chinese nationals at home.
