Foreign nationals have been prosecuted for cybercrime from inside Sri Lanka, illegal gambling sites are being blocked and Police want a real-time centralised system to investigate digital financial crime. The question is whether Sri Lanka is becoming a convenient operating base for an international criminal industry.
Sri Lanka’s cybercrime problem is acquiring an uncomfortable international dimension.
Information disclosed to Parliament has confirmed that legal action has been taken against foreign nationals living in Sri Lanka and allegedly engaging in cybercrime, while arrangements are being made with their respective embassies for their deportation.
The disclosure emerged from the Ministerial Consultative Committee on Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs, chaired by Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala. The committee examined cybercrime, financial fraud and illegal online gambling as part of a broader review of public security.
Police officials told the committee that websites connected to illegal gambling and other unlawful activities were being blocked.
More revealing, however, was what the Police say they now need in order to fight the problem.
Software engineers and lawyers are being recruited to strengthen cybercrime investigations. New officers are to receive field and overseas training, while authorities are considering new technology and a centralised system capable of conducting investigations in real time.
The authorities also acknowledged difficulties in obtaining and sharing information internationally where cryptocurrency is involved.
Put together, those disclosures describe something rather larger than the occasional internet fraudster working from a laptop.
Modern scam operations can involve call centres, fake investment platforms, cryptocurrency transfers, social-media impersonation, online gambling, stolen identities and money moving across several jurisdictions before investigators have established where it went.
Sri Lanka is particularly vulnerable because the infrastructure required to operate such schemes is remarkably ordinary.
A rented house, several computers, high-speed internet connections, mobile telephones and access to international payment mechanisms may be enough to create an operation capable of targeting victims thousands of kilometres away.
That raises a question extending beyond arresting the people sitting behind the computers.
How are these operations entering Sri Lanka, renting premises, establishing communications infrastructure and moving money without attracting attention?
If foreign nationals are operating organised cybercrime from Sri Lankan territory, immigration authorities, banks, telecommunications providers, landlords and financial intelligence agencies all potentially occupy different parts of the same enforcement picture.
That does not mean each should become an arm of the Police. It means the State requires the ability to connect information quickly when reasonable suspicion exists and the law permits it.
There is also an important civil-liberties boundary.
The answer to cybercrime cannot be indiscriminate surveillance of everybody using the internet. Police powers must remain subject to law, judicial supervision where required and safeguards protecting the privacy of ordinary citizens.
Effective policing and individual liberty are not competing objectives. A competent criminal-justice system should be capable of protecting both.
The parliamentary committee has correctly recognised that technology is changing the nature of crime. Recruiting software engineers and creating specialist investigative capacity is therefore sensible.
But Sri Lanka must move quickly.
Cybercriminals do not wait for procurement committees, recruitment examinations and administrative circulars.
The Police are effectively telling Parliament that the criminals have gone digital.
The State had better catch up.
Be that as it may.
Parliament says foreign nationals have faced legal action, deportation arrangements are being made, illegal gambling sites are being blocked, specialist personnel are being recruited and a real-time centralised investigative system is under consideration.
