Police in Sri Lanka arrest 22 Buddhist monks after 110 kg of marijuana found in luggage | Sri Lanka

Twenty-two Buddhist monks are in Sri Lankan police custody after customs officials found 110kg of high-grade marijuana hidden in their luggage, the largest ever drug haul at Colombo’s main international airport.

The group, mostly junior monks in training from temples across Sri Lanka, “carried about five kilos of the narcotic hidden inside false walls in their luggage”, according to a Sri Lankan customs spokesman.

The monks had spent four days on holiday in Bangkok and had hidden “kush”, a powerful type of marijuana, in their luggage when they returned to Bandaranaike Airport on Saturday, the spokesman said. Video footage posted on social media shows monks at the airport hiding their faces with their clothes.

The men were handed over to the police and were taken before a magistrate on Sunday.

It was the biggest single detection of kush at the South Asian country’s main international airport, officials said, with the haul worth 1.1 billion rupees (£2.5m).

The local Daily News reported that the monks’ trip was sponsored, and their phones contained photos of the group enjoying the holiday in “lay clothes”.

A 23rd monk, believed to have organized the trip, was arrested in a suburb of Colombo, police told the BBC World Service’s Sinhalese station. According to the police spokesman, the monk, who was not on the trip, told the other monks “these packages are a donation” and that a van would come to collect the packages, the BBC reported reported.

A 21-year-old British woman was arrested in May last year with 46 kg of the drugs at the same airport. Charlotte May Lee (21) from Coulsdon, South London, said the drugs were planted in her luggage without her knowledge. She was also traveling to Colombo from Bangkok.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report