COLOMBO: Sri Lankan police have arrested 37 Chinese nationals suspected of running a cyberscam centre in the capital Colombo, a spokesman said on Sunday, in the latest crackdown on foreign-run online fraud.

The suspects, aged between 23 and 44 and including one woman, were arrested after a tip-off, the police spokesman said.

“They had entered the country on tourist visas and were illegally employed, while two of them had overstayed their visas,” he added.

A local police source said 35 tablet computers, 147 mobile phones and 100 SIM cards were seized at the suspected scam centre in the Colombo suburb of Talangama.

The arrests came a month after 152 foreign nationals, mostly Chinese, were detained for allegedly running a cyberscam operation out of a hotel in the island’s northwest. Immigration authorities arrested 135 Chinese men and women in March for allegedly running a similar scam operation.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2026