American held with 23 kg of kush at Colombo airport
Customs officers arrested a 31-year-old American at Bandaranaike airport on 15 April 2025 after finding 23kg of kush cannabis in his suitcase on arrival from Thailand. Officials put the street value at about £582,000 and linked the case to a rise in Thailand-origin smuggling.
🇱🇰 Bandaranaike International Airport, Katunayake · Sri Lanka
A 31-year-old American citizen was arrested for allegedly smuggling a suitcase
full of “kush” cannabis into Sri Lanka from Thailand.[1]The man, who works
for a land trading company in the United States, was held at the Bandaranaike
airport in Colombo on Tuesday morning after arriving on a SriLankan Airlines
flight.[1]He was detained while trying to leave the airport through a
designated business corridor at the arrival terminal.[1]He has not been
named.[1]
The Narcotics Control Unit of Sri Lanka Customs recovered a total of 23kg of
cannabis concealed in around two dozen packets in his suitcase.[1]Customs
officials estimated the street value of the seized drugs at about £582,000.[1]
The American was one of more than half a dozen foreigners arrested in the first
four months of the year while attempting to bring cannabis into Sri Lanka from
Thailand.[1]Additional Director General of Sri Lanka Customs Seevali Arukgoda
said decriminalisation of cannabis in Thailand had been followed by a growing
trend of smuggling of the drug into Sri Lanka in significant quantities.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The article was published on Wednesday 16 April 2025 and says the man was held on Tuesday morning, so 15 April 2025 is used as the incident date.
Only one account of this arrest could be opened; no second outlet or agency statement was found to corroborate it.
No charge, court production or later outcome was reported.
The same article also reports four Sri Lankan citizens arrested the same day with under 500g each, an Indian couple arrested the previous month and a British national detained the previous year; those are separate events left out of this report.
Galle District Crime Division officers arrested a 41-year-old Unawatuna resident in a local raid and recovered over 125 grams of Kush alongside crystal methamphetamine. Police said further investigations into the possession case were underway.
A man detained while taking part in the sit-in against the Anuradhapura Sacred City Development Plan, on a charge of obstructing police duties, has been found to have used both heroin and cannabis. Two civilians were arrested over the confrontation between police and Buddhist monks near the Ruwanweli Maha Seya stupa.
Airport Police Narcotics Bureau officers arrested a 37-year-old Indian businessman at Bandaranaike International Airport early on 7 November 2026 as he allegedly tried to smuggle kush and hashish out of Sri Lanka. They found 2.102 kg of kush in tins labelled as tamarind toffees and 5.26 kg of hashish shaped like toffees, which police valued at about Rs 231.42 million.
Police in Madiwela, Kotte, arrested a 25-year-old local resident in a night raid on 6 November 2026 and seized 558 grams of Kush, a cannabis product, along with heroin and crystal methamphetamine. The Western Province North Crime Division, which ran the raid on received information, said investigations were continuing.
