Two organised crime suspects held in Dubai are due to be flown back to Sri Lanka within days, police said, in the latest of a series of repatriations of wanted men detained abroad. The two newsrooms reporting the operation give different arrival days.
NewsFirst reported that Lalith Kannangara, known as “Bus Lalith”, and a second suspect known as “Wanathe Chathu” are scheduled to arrive on the night of 24 August.
The two newsrooms give different arrival days. NewsFirst names 24 August; the Daily Mirror, filing on Saturday evening, said Kannangara was due to be brought back “tomorrow” — 23 August. The Daily Mirror’s report deals only with Kannangara and does not mention Wanathe Chathu.
A team led by Senior Superintendent of Police Kamal Ariyawansa, Director of the Central Crime Investigation Bureau, has already travelled to Dubai to take custody of the pair. He is accompanied by officers from the State Intelligence Service and the Criminal Investigation Department, who went on the instructions of the Inspector General of Police. The Daily Mirror said the CCIB team left for Dubai early on Friday morning.
The Dubai case
Bus Lalith was arrested at an apartment complex in Dubai after a close associate detained in Sri Lanka was questioned and provided information, according to NewsFirst. The same team of SSP Ariyawansa, SIS and CID officers carried out that operation. The Daily Mirror said Dubai police made the arrest acting on information supplied by the CCIB, and gives Kannangara’s age as 24 and his full alias as “Bus Lalith Anidda”, describing him as a drug trafficker as well as an organised crime figure.
Efforts to return him began soon afterwards, but he contested the move before a Dubai court. That court recently ruled against him and ordered his deportation.
Police say Bus Lalith is wanted over several murders, extortion cases and robberies in Sri Lanka. Wanathe Chathu is described as a close associate of the organised crime figure Kanjipani Imran.
NewsFirst’s report on Saturday dates the Dubai arrest to November 2025, but two other accounts point to October. The Daily Mirror places the arrest in “October last year”, and NewsFirst’s own contemporaneous report of it, headlined “‘Bus Lalith’ Falls: Sri Lankan Criminal Nabbed in Dubai”, was published on 14 October 2025. On the weight of that evidence the arrest appears to have taken place in October 2025, and the month given in NewsFirst’s latest filing appears to be an error.
Two more in custody
NewsFirst said two further organised crime suspects, known as “Alto Dharme” and “Konda Ranji”, remain in custody in Dubai. It did not say whether deportation proceedings are under way in their cases.
The repatriations follow a run of similar operations. Three suspects held in Malaysia — including an alleged close associate of Kanjipani Imran — were flown back to Colombo on 10 August, and the underworld figure “Summitpura Chathu” was returned from Oman on 18 August.
Update: he arrived on August 25
Neither predicted arrival day held. Kannangara was flown into Sri Lanka on the morning of 25 August, escorted by a CID team, with Ada Derana, the Daily Mirror and Hiru News all reporting the arrival.
Hiru’s account supports the October 2025 arrest date set out above, against the November 2025 date in NewsFirst’s 22 August filing. Ada Derana gives Kannangara’s age as 36 and his address as Kalutara South, which conflicts with the age of 24 in the Daily Mirror’s earlier report; neither outlet has reconciled the two.
None of the three reports on the arrival mentions Wanathe Chathu, so whether he was returned at the same time is still unreported.
