Who let the containers slip through?

The CID is buzzing like a wasps’ nest over a shipment that should have been locked down at the port — but somehow ended up in a secret “Ice factory” trail stretching from Wattala to the misty hills of Nuwara Eliya.

Here’s the juicy bit: the containers were cleared. Not by one office, but after twin green lights — first at Customs, then at the Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB).

Customs Lab: took samples, shrugged, said “nothing suspicious here”.

PNB bigwigs: leaned on that report, scribbled their no-objection note, and waved the consignment through — without even bothering to test with their own kits.

Now the CID has those very officers on the hot seat — statements taken from the DIG in charge of Narcotics and the PNB Director himself. The whisper is: did they get sloppy, or was someone greasing the wheels?

The trail got dirty fast. A digger named “Backhoe Saman” gave investigators the lead. Soon, cops were unearthing barrels in Middeniya farmland, tracing chemicals to a Wattala lab that churned out 14 kilos of Ice. Out of that stash, 10 kilos are said to have gone straight into the hands of underworld boss Kehelbaddara Padme.

And here’s the international gossip angle — Pakistani “chemists” were allegedly flown in to cook the stuff, giving the local crews a crash course in high-grade meth production.

Now the question everyone’s whispering:

Did Customs just miss it? Did the PNB trust a lazy lab test? Or did someone in the system decide to look the other way while narcos laughed their way to millions?

Either way, Uncle CID has the red flag in hand — and some very nervous suits in Colombo’s corridors of power.