Wiping out the Underworld – Crackdown on Organised Crime in Sri Lanka
The Asian Crime Century briefing 36
The police in Sri Lanka have launched a nationwide operation against organised crime, involving 4,000 officers from the Special Task Force (STF), the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the State Intelligence Service (SIS), the Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB) and other police units. The authorities have stated that the anti-crime operation will continue indefinitely until further notice, which sounds worryingly like the start of a stronger police role in society.
The Sri Lankan Police have said that the operation is intended to lead to the arrest of known criminals, armed suspects, those with outstanding warrants and drug traffickers. Police in all police stations have been instructed to expedite investigations into major unresolved crimes in their areas dating back five years and to arrest suspects involved within three months. Permanent and temporary police roadblocks will be used during the day and night, and a hotline as well as WhatsApp number will be introduced to enable the public to report information regarding “suspected underworld members”. The measures seem like a good opportunity to arrest anybody for anything, which may well be the purpose.
The Sri Lankan Police have formed a ‘Special Task Force’ to combat organised crime, which they state involves 17 active criminal gangs. The Commandant of the Special Task Force has said that they have identified the leaders of the gangs, who are operating from Dubai. There have been 31 shootings involving organised crime gangs fighting “turf wars” in the past three months, with 85 people arrested by the police. The gangs hire someone, including many army deserters, to kill a target at a cost of 100,000 to 150,000 Rupees (US$300 to 450).
Fleeing the country may be harder as the police will install facial recognition machines at the Bandaranaike International Airport, enabling the authorities to identify criminals even if they are using forged passports. The obvious place for criminals to escape to is India, which is only around 50 kilometres away across the Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar. Last week police in Bengaluru arrested three men who were reportedly members of a criminal gang from Sri Lanka who had fled the island as they were being sought by a rival gang as well as the police. The Indian police stated that two of the men were involved in multiple murders in Sri Lanka related to gang wars in their home country.
The reasons for the police crackdown are clear from the crime statistics. During the first 11 months of 2022 around 497 Sri Lankans were killed in violent incidents, with 223 of those deaths were caused by shooting and assault. There were around 3,596 cases of kidnappings for ransom, an increase of 2,800% from the same period in 2021 when there were only 835 such incidents.
Sri Lankans flee to India to escape the law as well as the economic crisis and violence. In February this year, police in Mandapan (a town in Tamil Nadu near the closest point to on the Indian mainland to Sri Lanka) arrested two men who recently arrived at the local refugee camp after discovering that the eldest of the two was wanted in Sri Lanka for drug trafficking. The Mandapam refugee camp houses around 250 economic refugees who fled from Sri Lanka due to the economic crisis. Many Sri Lankans flee to Tamil Nadu in India because they share language, culture, and many have relatives living there.
Large numbers of Tamils fled from Sri Lanka during the civil war years, and according to the Chennai-based Rehabilitation Commissionerate, the department responsible for the wellbeing of the Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu state in India, by May 2023 there were 58,357 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees living in 106 camps in 29 districts across Tamil Nadu.
The Commandant of the police Special Task Force has said that the soaring cost of living and the setbacks the rule of law had suffered were the main reasons for the increase in the incidence of crime. The economic problems have a very recent history. In March 2022, there were mass protests in Sri Lanka that led to the fall of the president of the country and a state of emergency with the military empowered to detain people, stop public gatherings, and search premises.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country on military jet to safety in the Maldives. His brother, a former finance minister, also left Sri Lanka, seemingly ending the family’s power in the country. The president and his government were blamed by the protesters for the economic crisis in Sri Lanka, which resulted in power cuts as well as inflation and shortages of essential goods. The economic crisis involved limited fuel supplies because of the international supply situation, largely driven by the war in Ukraine. Inflation in Sri Lanka was estimated to be over 50% and had an immediate impact on the cost of living for ordinary people.
Not only does Sri Lanka have difficulties with inflation and the supply of essential goods, but the country has huge debts. China is a major creditor having provided loans for major infrastructure projects such as $155 million for the Puttalam / Norochcholai Coal Power Project that generates around one third of electricity in the country. The reliance on coal powered energy is worsened as a major supplier to Sri Lanka is Russia. In addition, Sri Lanka owes China $8.0 billion related to construction of the Hambantota port, strategically located on the southern coast of Sri Lanka. After struggling to repay the debts, the Sri Lanka government signed a 99-year lease for Chinese state-controlled China Merchants Port Holdings company to control the port and surrounding 15,000 acres. The mismanagement of Hambantota port has caused local anger in Sri Lanka after aides to former president Rajapaksa have been accused of receiving cash from the project during the 2015 presidential election.
The growth of organised crime, the economic crisis, and civil unrest have left the Sri Lankan Police unable to cope with the challenges. In 2022, the retiring Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police Priyantha Jayakody said that “The problem is that the Police are now entrusted with many duties unlike in the past. They also have to assist in the distribution of fuel and gas and solve many issues that arise in fuel and gas queues. Police stations from the periphery too must send in personnel to Colombo for protest control. Therefore, the Police don’t have time to stop gangs. These gangs make money by selling drugs and there is an increasing demand for drugs.”
The worry about this situation should be what the police do during the new crackdown against organised crime gangs. Minister for Public Security Tiran Alles, said at a press conference last week that the “security forces have also been instructed to shoot if necessary” during these operations. The approach sounds similar to the brutal police crackdown ordered by former President Duterte in the Philippines, which inevitably leads to innocent people as well as criminals being targeted. Despite the police crackdown against organised crime, it seems likely that the problems will persist at least until Sri Lanka has a more stable economy and its citizens see improvements to their lives.