ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery of Commission working on four cases under the island’s newly passed proceeds of crimes law, its Director General Ranga Dissanayake said.
A hotel and some houses said to be owned by officials are being investigated, he said without elaborating.
Under the law, the state can confiscate assets which the holders cannot explain how they acquired on the principle of ‘balance of probabilities’ without proving ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ as in criminal cases.
A suspect has to explain how they came about the assets to prevent them being confiscated.
The state can confiscate asset which cannot be explained away, without convicting the person of a crime.
The CIABOC is receiving large numbers of complaints from the public and there was also a backlog of old cases, but the agency is unable to recruit officers to investigate them after a fiscal rule blocked the expansion, he said.
The CIABOC is working on a list of ‘Grand Corruption’ and Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), he said.
The list was prepared by the Commission before he was hired as the director general. (Colombo/Oct03/2025)
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