Sri Lanka Deputy Minister's official arrested for human smuggling

Colombo Fraud Investigation Bureau has arrested a coordinating secretary of Deputy Minister of Resettlement, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan. The Minister's official who surrendered to the Fraud Investigation Bureau on March 02 is accused of his involvement in human smuggling.
He has allegedly been collecting money from people of the Eastern Province to send them to Western countries for employment. The Minister's official is involved in the incident of sending 209 persons to the West African state of Togo promising them to be taken from there to Canada. They were deserted in Togo by the smugglers and some of them have returned to the island with the assistance of the International Organization for Migration. The Fraud Investigation Bureau last month arrested another one of the six suspects of the smuggling operation. The smugglers have reportedly charged up to Rs. 1.5 million from the illegal migrants who were smuggled to Togo.