A Police Sergeant of the Public Order Management Division who was deceiving businessmen by stating that eggs could be given for 35 rupees each was handed over to the Narahenpita Police, on Wednesday (2).
The businessmen who were deceived in this fraud had told the Narahenpita Police that this Sergeant named Priyantha de Silva had been carrying out this scam under the name of a Sub Inspector working in the Slave Island Police Station. The Narahenpita Police said that businessmen had been told that a resident of Ranabima Mawatha, Mulleriyawa who runs a retail business at Kompanna Veediya, Stewart Street and had also been defrauded of Rs. 50,000 rupees by promising to give him 10 cartons of eggs at 35 rupees each.
This businessman had been deceived by the fraud on March 6. Police also mentioned that while making a phone call to the businessman, the Sergeant who was involved in this fraud had said that he can provide the 10 boxes of eggs. There he had pretended to be a Sub-inspector of Kompanna Veediya Police. It is said that since the call was made by a Police officer, the businessman had agreed to buy the 10 boxes of eggs without any suspicion.
The Sergeant who had made the phone call as a Sub-inspector had told the businessman to come near the petrol station in Narahenpita to collect the boxes of eggs. Accordingly, this businessman had taken two employees from his business place and gone to the Narahenpita Police Petrol Station. This Sergeant, who posed as SI Ajith, met the businessman there and received Rs. 50,000 to deliver the stock of eggs and left the place after asking them to wait a moment until he brought the eggs there.
The Sergeant, who was deceiving businessmen and defrauding money, was caught because he made a similar phone call to a friend of the businessman in Kompanna Veediya and said that he had eggs. He had been told that there are 10 boxes of eggs at 32 rupees each.
According to a phone call from the Police officer, the original businessman and this businessman had gone to a supermarket complex in Narahenpita day before yesterday (2) ready for anything. When the Police officer who had come to the place asked for Rs. 50,000, the businessman, who was initially deceived, had identified the Police officer, caught him and prevented him from running away and taken him to the Narahenpita police station. There, the Narahenpita Police registered a complaint regarding the fraud and arrested this Police officer. It was revealed that this officer was not a sub-inspector, but a Sergeant, during the interrogation at Narahenpita Police.
The Police authorities had taken steps to interdict this officer.
Gayan Kumara Weerasinghe