Director General of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) addressing the media yesterday (20) said, siphoning of Srilankan money is done by people with the expert help of Auditors , Engineers and financial exporters . In most cases monies are deposited in offshore entities beyond Srilanka jurisdiction. To retrieve it, from respective countries we have to enter into mutual legal assistance agreements and other international agreements to detect these funds with the help of those countries.
In addition where are cases where Srilankan have invested illegally accrued well in off shore properties.
He further said that ‘’ we attended the Global Forum on Asset Recovery in Washington DC in the United s States earlier this month with the assistances of the United kingdom. Switzerland and the US , we will be able to detect the monies that have been siphoned off to other countries and to retrieve it back to Srilanka .Initially four countries were chosen, Nigeria , Srilanka, Tunisia and Ukraine, which will provide an opportunity for focal countries to identify technical assistants needs with bilateral and multilateral assistance providers. As a symbolic gesture. Nigeria was presented with US$300 million by Switzerland. This gesture was in respect of monies siphoned off by the former Nigerian President Sani Abacha . It is believed that he has siphoned at least US$ 7 billion out of Nigeria .Most money was deposited in certain Western Countries, some are in Switzerland as well’’.
To wind up the media briefing he said, that he cannot give an exact estimate of the amount that has been siphoned out of Srilanka.
