Sajin de Vaas Gunawardena indicted over money laundering charges

Friday, 9 August 2019 00:16 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Attorney General has indicted former Parliamentarian Sajin de Vaas Gunawardena under the Money Laundering Act for alleged suspicious deposits of a total of Rs. 306 million through several of his companies.

Sajin de Vaas Gunawardena

The former Parliamentarian was indicted under Section 3 [1] [a] of the Money Laundering Act in the Colombo Permanent High Court.

The indictment was filed following an inquiry conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) based on a complaint received on 2 February 2015.

The CID investigation revealed that Sajin de Vaas Gunawardena owned a group of companies under the name of COSMOS, which had 21 companies at the time he handed in nominations to contest the Parliamentary Elections in 2010.

Though he has resigned from the directorship of all those companies since, and transferred his shares to his wife before he became a member of the 14th Parliament, the evidence revealed that he had effectively run the full operation of those companies, even after becoming an MP.

The CID investigation had also revealed that Gunawardena had made suspicious transactions through seven of the 21 companies he owned. According to the Prosecution, he had allegedly deposited Rs. 458,747,757 in the accounts of those companies.

Evidence was also disclosed revealing that Gunawardena would bring in cash and ask to deposit it into accounts under those companies. It has been further revealed that Gunawardena withdrew cash from those same companies, though he had no any legal bearing to do so, as he had rescinded his ownership and directorship of those companies.

The investigators found out that neither Gunawardena nor his wife, in their own admission, have any such known income comparable to the vast sums of money he had made as deposits in those company accounts.

The disparity between the total sum of deposits and his and his wife’s incomes, including company drawings he had made illegally, had been identified as Rs. 306,268,194.

According to Coordinating Officer to the AG SC Nishara Jayaratne, Gunawardena failed to explain how he earned such an income to make those deposits, especially in a time during which he acted as an elected Member of the Parliament.