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Detectives trace funds to Delaware bank
View(s):US$2.5 million Treasury heist:
A part of the US$2.5 million transferred by the Treasury to scammers after a breach of the computer system at the Ministry of Finance has been traced to a bank account in the state of Delaware in the United States, a senior police officer said.
The account had been in the name of a company in Delaware engaged in registering online businesses while the account was maintained at a branch of the TD Bank in the state, the official involved in the investigation said.
He said it was not clear how much of the USD 2.5 had been transferred to that account but said it was not the whole amount. “The money had gone into more than one account,” he said.
This information has come to light after the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka got in touch with the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and sought its assistance. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which is involved in the investigation along with the FIU, has been sharing the available information with the FBI as well as the Australian authorities.
The US$2.5 million in question was meant to be transferred as part of a bilateral loan payment to Australia but ended up in a fraudulent account after finance ministry email accounts were hacked, according to the government.
The Australian Federal Police too have been assisting the Sri Lankan authorities in their investigations into the loss of the funds.
They have sought the details of the email exchanges that led to the money being referred to the fraudulent account, the official said.
Meanwhile, the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) has noted in a report that the Treasury’s debt service payment process is carried out through a fully digitised system with no physical documentation or signatures and with authority delegated solely to the relevant officials.
The COPF, which called for a closed-door meeting last Tuesday (April 30) on the fraudulent ten transactions amounting to US$2.5 million, also noted that the Public Debt Management Office (PDMO) Back-Office Director in charge of the debt service function has the power to authorise all foreign debt service payments from the consolidated fund.
The COPF meeting, chaired by Samagi Janabalawegaya Parliamentarian Harsha de Silva, saw Treasury Secretary Harshana Suriyapperuma testify before the committee, along with senior officials from the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, the Department of External Resources, the PDMO, and the CBSL.
The Treasury Operations Department (TOD), which is functionally responsible for cash flows from the consolidated fund, is copied on the debt service payment confirmation. But it is not required to confirm and provide final authorisation of the payment, the committee found.
The newly set-up Public Debt Management Office (PDMO) centralised responsibilities that were spread across the Public Debt Department (PDD) of CBSL, the External Resources Department (ERD) and the Public Enterprises Department (PED) of the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.
In mid-January 2026, the Finance Ministry was alerted to suspicious cyber activity with regard to its foreign debt repayment process involving a bilateral creditor country – alluded to as being India, the Committee noted.
During the final transitional period of the debt management process from September 2025 to January this year, CBSL officials told the committee that at least two transactions with incomplete information were rejected for payment from their systems.
Prior to the PDMO’s establishment, the External Resources Department (ERD) handled all functions related to the management of bilateral and multilateral debt, including receiving invoices from creditors for debt repayments, processing payment instructions in its back office, and forwarding them to the CBSL’s PDD.
The PDD would confirm the payment instructions and forward them to the Finance Department of CBSL, which, in turn, would send confirmation to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) for the Payments Department of CBSL.
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