Ravi Wettasinghe was arrested by Immigration and Emigration officials this evening (20 February) at the Bandaranaike International Airport in connection with a pending case, said police spokesman SSP Ajith Rohana.

Though what the pending case is not clear as yet, Ravi Wettasinghe, who was chairman of Wesco, the CTB’s Werahera central workshop after being privatized has been allegedly involved in several cases years ago.

One was a case of cheating on establishing a resort hotel, another over misappropriating over 500 million rupees by violating the conditions of the agreement for the sale of spare parts belonging to the CTB’s Werahera Central workshop.

Regarding this case, court had issued an arrest warrant through INTERPOL as well since he had been reported as having gone overseas.

At one time, during the J.R. Jayewardene and R.Premadasa regimes the media even dubbed him the ‘Latec millionaire’ since he supplied locally assembled passenger buses to the CTB under the brand name Latec.

He was also involved in an alleged controversial assault case at The Library, the then Trans Asia Hotel’s night club with a now prominent political figure somewhere in 2002. Wettasinghe was also mentioned in the controversial Channel – 9 deal during the Chandrika regime.

Ravi Wettasinghe was the head of the then popular Elctro Plastics Limited which was at that time located next to the canal at Ethul Kotte in Rajagiriya.