Oct 06, Colombo: Three Sri Lankan athletes with international recognition had been arrested for their involvement in a visa racket using their passports to smuggle people out of the country and charging them a large sum of money.

According to national media reports and police spokesman SSP Ranjith Gunasekara Prasanna Amarasekara, an athlete attached to Sri Lanka Army, and G.G. Nandani and S. Irangani, female athletes attached to Sri Lanka Navy have been arrested along with another suspect, Ranga Wimalawansha.

“They have cheated a sum of Rs. 10.5 million according to our investigations in various occasions promising to send people abroad,” he said.

The athletes have helped to send one Tamil woman and two Muslim men to Britain using their passports.