LEN - www.lankaenews.com | Sri Lanka's Most Wanted Fugitive Builds a Transnational Network From Exile

Sri Lanka's Most Wanted Fugitive Builds a Transnational Network From Exile

-By Ruwan Weerakoon

(Lanka-e-News -2026.July.10, 3.30 PM)

I. A Kingpin Reasserts Control From the Shadows

Mohammad Najim Mohammad Imran — known across Colombo's underworld as "Kanjipani Imran" — is rebuilding a criminal empire from an undisclosed location abroad, according to intelligence gathered by Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Department (CID). A senior police official involved in anti-underworld operations told this reporter that Imran has forged alliances with transnational criminal syndicates and, allegedly, foreign militant networks, in order to scale up narcotics trafficking and orchestrate contract killings inside Sri Lanka. He remains the subject of an active Interpol Red Notice.

II. The Alleged Network

According to the CID source, Imran's current operations rest on three pillars:
Trafficking infrastructure: alleged use of foreign militant logistics networks to move large narcotics shipments into the country.
Contract violence: plots against rival gang figures, informants, and law enforcement personnel — allegations that remain unproven in court.
Evasion: forged travel documents and shifting safe houses that have kept him beyond the reach of international law enforcement despite the Red Notice.
Sri Lankan intelligence agencies, working with international partners, have reportedly intensified efforts to locate and extradite him.

III. From Maligawatte Enforcer to Maritime Trafficker

Imran's rise began as a local enforcer in Maligawatte, Colombo, running mid-level drug distribution and extortion. His reach grew substantially after he partnered with Samarasinghe Arachchige Madush Lakshitha — better known as Makandure Madush — then Sri Lanka's most prominent drug baron. Together they built a syndicate controlling a significant share of maritime trafficking routes through the Indian Ocean.

IV. The Dubai Arrest and Deportation

In February 2019, Dubai Police, working with international agencies, arrested Imran alongside Madush and several other Sri Lankan nationals at a hotel gathering in Dubai. UAE authorities deported him to Sri Lanka the following month, where the CID took him into custody.

V. Indictments and the 2022 Bail Order

On return, Imran faced numerous pending indictments, including conspiracy to murder, extortion, and trafficking commercial quantities of heroin, and was held under high-security detention. In December 2022, a Sri Lankan court granted him bail in one case, subject to a travel ban and passport impoundment.

VI. Escape via the Palk Strait

Within days of release, Imran evaded surveillance and left Sri Lanka by fishing trawler across the Palk Strait, reportedly landing near Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu. From there, intelligence sources say he obtained forged identity documents through an established network of local handlers and moved on to a third country — believed, though not confirmed, to be Pakistan or a European destination — from which he is now said to direct his operations.

VII. A Fugitive Turned Transnational Actor

Analysts within the CID describe Imran's trajectory as a shift from local gang leader to transnational facilitator, allegedly bridging South Asian narcotics supply routes through Pakistan's "Golden Crescent" corridor with North African criminal contacts in Algeria. If accurate, this would elevate him from a conventional fugitive to a national security concern with the capacity to finance destabilising activity inside Sri Lanka.