Sri Lanka Traces Stolen Public Funds to Dubai

Sri Lanka said Thursday it had traced more than a billion dollars in public funds allegedly stolen by members of the former regime to a bank in Dubai, and that the total amount taken could be as much as $10 billion.

Rajitha Senaratne, a spokesman for the new government, said investigators had traced $1.06 billion to the National Bank of Dubai, although he did not reveal who held the accounts.

Former president Mahinda Rajapakse and his immediate family are accused of siphoning large sums of money from the public coffers during his decade in power, which ended when he lost January elections.

"We have information that one withdrawal of $600 million and a second withdrawal of $200 million had been made after the election (on January 8) and shifted to a safer location," Senaratne told reporters.

He said the government had learned that up $10 billion in public funds had been been stolen and taken out of the country.

Sri Lanka's anti-graft body has already slapped overseas travel bans on the former central bank governor Nivard Cabraal and Sajin Vass Gunawardena, a key Rajapakse aide, pending a corruption investigation.

The new government has set up a special police unit to investigate large-scale financial fraud.

On Thursday Senaratne said the government had also decided to appoint a special panel to work with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and foreign financial experts to bring back Sri Lanka's stolen wealth stashed abroad.

Rajapakse and his relatives controlled nearly 70 percent of the national budget during the former president's rule.