‘Dematagoda Ruwan’ remanded; luxury vehicles purchased with drug money seized

The brother of the notorious criminal figure on death row ‘Dematagoda Chaminda’ who was arrested over his involvement in drug dealing has been remanded until November 05.

Ruwan Chamila Prasanna alias ‘Dematagoda Ruwan’ was taken into custody yesterday (October 29) by the Illegal Assets and Property Investigation Division of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

The suspect was produced before Colombo Additional Magistrate Lochani Abeywickrama earlier today.

During the court proceedings, the CID officers told the court four luxury vehicles valued over Rs. 180 million and 1.5 kilograms of gold that ‘Dematagoda Ruwan’ had purchased with the money earned from drug dealing were seized by them.

Reportedly, the suspect was in possession of a Range Rover worth Rs. 70 million, a Prado SUV of Rs. 30 million and two brand new BMW cars valued Rs. 33 million and Rs. 48 million.

According to the CID, the suspect had smuggled close to 1,000 kilograms of narcotics into the country from India since 2011, across the international maritime border and that he had distributed the contraband in the areas of Mattakkuliya and Dematagoda.

It was also revealed that the suspect owns a nightclub located in Dematagoda. Probes uncovered that ‘Dematagoda Ruwan’ had forged documents to indicate the profit yielded from his nightclub business for the years 2018, 2019 and 2020 as Rs. 5 million, although the audit reports showed that the profit was only Rs. 500,000, the investigating officers further told the court.

The defence attorney, in the meantime, alleged that the CID is conducting a partial investigation based on the request of a certain politician and a businessman.