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The MiG Scandal - The Bloodied Truth Hidden Behind a "National Security" Cover

Watch Dog Writes

(Lanka E-News – 18 September 2026, 5.30 AM) When a country is at war and national security is at risk, it's easy to believe that any urgent decision taken in its name is justified. But what if that wartime urgency and the shield of "national security" were used to pump billions of rupees of public money into fake foreign companies, and the journalists who exposed it were murdered in broad daylight? Is that patriotism, or organised state robbery?

What Is This MiG Deal?

The grave question we must now confront stems from Sri Lanka's 2006 deal to purchase MiG-27 fighter jets for the Air Force. An investigation into this massive scandal, suppressed for years, has resurfaced with a new face in September 2026. This report reveals the true story of the invisible political and military hierarchy hidden behind an arms deal.

In 2006, the Ministry of Defence decided to purchase four refurbished MiG-27 aircraft and repair four existing ones. This was presented to the Cabinet as a direct government-to-government (G2G) deal with Ukraine's state entity, Ukrinmash.

However, what the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) uncovered was something entirely different. A massive sum of US$14.66 million from the state treasury was sent not to the Ukrainian government, but to a company called Bellimissa Holdings, supposedly registered in the UK. Investigations later found no such company existed in London; it was merely a postal address. The money had actually gone into an account held by a shell company set up in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

Ukraine's government, for its part, states that it never signed a G2G agreement with Sri Lanka's government; it sold the aircraft through an intermediary and received only US$7.83 million. So what happened to the remaining roughly US$6.83 million, nearly $7 million, of the $14.66 million sent from the treasury? The price paid was 100% higher than what was paid for the same aircraft in 2000.

Where Did the Money Go?

The shell company "Bellimissa" was fronted by none other than Singapore-based arms broker T.S. Lee, along with his wife Eng Lee Kim and brother Lee Tian Bock. This is the same group behind Singapore's D.S. Alliance, a company that had been blacklisted after aircraft it supplied to the Air Force in 2000 suffered defects and fatal crashes. To hide their past, they created the fictitious company Bellimissa.

Diplomatic cover for this international racket was provided by Udayanga Weeratunga, then Sri Lanka's ambassador to Russia. Some of the commission money reportedly went into local accounts belonging to Udayanga's brother-in-law, Lelum Manamperi, while 400,000 (units unspecified in original) went to an account at Star GLGA in Dubai. Investigators have also traced how these funds were invested in properties in Singapore and Australia. Meanwhile, former Ukrinmash director Dmitry Peregudov was even arrested by Interpol in Paris.

How National Security Was Used to Bury the Deal

In 2005, when then Air Force Commander Donald Perera had called an open tender, it was cancelled, and the fraudulent Ukrainian deal was directly approved by then-Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. A Cabinet recommendation to instead refurbish aircraft through India's HAL under a transparent tender process was discarded.

The multi-role combat aircraft requested by frontline pilots was sidelined, and the "strategic threat assessment" was deliberately altered to justify acquiring these very MiG jets even after the US Pacific Command had warned the risk level was too high.

The "Technical Evaluation Committee," headed by then Air Force Commander Roshan Goonetilleke, reportedly handed these complex documents to lecturers from the University of Moratuwa just 24 hours before the meeting, inside the van on the way from Moratuwa to the Ministry. Such intense executive pressure is how the approval was secured.

Iqbal Athas and Lasantha: The Journalists Who Exposed the Fraud

This massive fraud was first exposed to the nation by Iqbal Athas in 2006, and by Lasantha Wickrematunge, editor of The Sunday Leader, in 2007. When Lasantha published the relevant documents, Gotabaya Rajapaksa filed a defamation case against him. Remarkably, although the original contract had disappeared from the Ministry of Defence, a copy had been submitted as evidence in that very defamation case filed against Lasantha in the Mount Lavinia courts, which is how the government was later able to recover it.

But just days before he was due to testify about this in Mount Lavinia court on 8 January 2009, Lasantha was assassinated in broad daylight near the high-security zone in Attidiya by a covert military unit, the "Tripoli Platoon" led by Major Prabath Bulathwatte. This was not merely financial fraud, but a bloody assassination carried out to conceal it.

What Did the Post-2019 Government Do?

Shani Abeysekara, the CID officer who investigated this case, was imprisoned. Nishantha Silva was forced to flee the country. FCID officers such as Pavithra Wanniarachchi (name as transliterated) and Nihal Francis, who had helped bring Udayanga back from Dubai, were transferred out. Presidential commissions were appointed that cleared the accused. Udayanga Weeratunga, who had been hiding in a luxury apartment in Ajman, Dubai, in 2016, was tracked by the CID's Cyber Crime Division via his IP address and extradited to Sri Lanka under the UNTOC convention.

Yet when he was brought to court in 2020, the new CID officers reportedly deliberately failed to submit the ASP-certified document required under the 1982 Public Property Act, resulting in him being granted bail. Magistrate Ranga Dissanayake strongly criticised this failure at the time.

The Investigation Has Taken a New Direction

Investigators are no longer chasing just bank accounts, but the chain of command behind the decisions. That is why investigators are now questioning former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and former Air Force Commander Roshan Goonetilleke.
Who approved this single-source tender? Whether administratively signing off on such deals amounts to "aiding and abetting" public property fraud is now being tested before the law. Under the new anti-corruption law and IMF recommendations, disclosure of true beneficial ownership is now mandatory.

The National Procurement Commission Becomes Active

To end the opacity that has plagued defence procurement, a new law under the IMF's Governance Diagnostic Assessment (GDA) now mandates that every G2G agreement be certified by both the Attorney General and the Auditor General. The pressures of war and the phrase "national security" can never again serve as a shield to escape public accountability or plunder public funds. This MiG deal is a genuine test of whether Sri Lanka has truly learned from its past.

Whether the invisible political and military hierarchy behind this blood-soaked, multi-million-dollar fraud will still manage to escape justice, we continue watching, eyes open.