An 18-year-old has been arrested over 2 kg 800 g of heroin found at a house in the Palapotha area of Beliatta, in the Hambantota district, police said. The drugs had been concealed at the property by the teenager’s 29-year-old elder brother, according to Hiru News.
NewsFirst reported the seizure on Sunday morning under a Tangalle dateline; Hiru’s fuller account, filed later, named the village and set out the sequence.
How the raid unfolded
Police questioned the 18-year-old, a resident of Palapotha, and he disclosed that a stock of heroin had been hidden at the house by his elder brother, Hiru reported. Officers then searched the residence and recovered the 2.8 kg, which police said had been brought for trafficking.
The owner of the house had already left the area before officers arrived. Hiru does not state whether the owner and the elder brother are the same person.
The teenager is to be produced before the Tangalle Magistrate’s Court. Further investigations into the seized heroin and the suspect are being conducted by Tangalle Headquarters Police.
The raiding unit, named two ways
NewsFirst credits the operation to the Western Province North Crime Division; Hiru calls it the Peliyagoda North Divisional Crime Division. Peliyagoda is the headquarters of the Western Province North police range, so the two names appear to describe the same unit rather than two separate teams. Either way it is a Western Province unit operating in the far south of the island — neither outlet explains what led it to a property in the Southern Province.
The exhibit photograph dated the raid, and Hiru confirmed it
NewsFirst gave no date for the raid. The photograph published with its report showed the seized package sealed in brown paper with string and wax seals in the standard form used for Sri Lankan court productions, hand-marked with the unit initials “WPNCD”, the production reference “PR.2211/26” and the date “26.09.26” — placing the seizure on Saturday, September 26.
Hiru’s account, published independently, states the raid was carried out “yesterday afternoon” — Saturday afternoon. The two agree.
Still not reported
Neither outlet names the arrested teenager, gives the street value of the heroin, or says whether the elder brother has since been traced. No police officer is quoted by name, and neither report says whether a detention order was sought.
A note on similar headlines
Searches for drug seizures at Tangalle return, above all, the very large haul found in the Seenimodara area of Tangalle in September 2025 — 705.91 kg of narcotics, comprising 284.94 kg of heroin and 420.976 kg of crystal methamphetamine, recovered from three lorries. That case is a year old and is a different matter entirely. This report concerns a 2.8 kg seizure made in September 2026 by a different unit.
Context
Southern coastal districts have featured repeatedly in this year’s narcotics enforcement. Police and the Navy have named the sea routes on either side of the island as the main channels for imports, with the Navy reporting seizures worth Rs. 55 billion so far in 2026, and inland detections have continued at pace, among them more than 17 kg of heroin and ICE at Piliyandala and 21 kg of drugs at Walgama in Matara.
