Lanka agent held for cheating Saudi

A Sri Lankan job agent was remanded in police custody in Colombo on Friday for cheating a Saudi of $ 33,000, promising him 11 housemaids to work in the Kingdom.
Sources in the Sri Lankan Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), which coordinates the activities of recruiting agents, confirmed the arrest of one of the registered job agents yesterday. However, they said that this was a private deal and that the organization cannot interfere in the case.
The SLBFE will take swift action to blacklist the agent if a court finds him guilty of the charges leveled against him, the sources said.
There are some 450 recruiting agents registered with the SLBFE to process foreign employment opportunities for Sri Lankans. Saudi Arabia has the largest concentration of the island's maids in the Middle East.
Lahireen Saibudan of Wellampitiya, Colombo, the job agent, was produced in court on charges of having defrauded a Saudi national of 3.2 million Sri Lankan rupees. He was ordered remanded until Jan. 9 by Colombo Fort Magistrate Kanishka Wijeratne. The identity of the Saudi national was not revealed by the sources.
The Colombo Fraud Investigations Bureau (CFIB) carried out investigations on the basis of a complaint made by the Saudi man.
The complainant told the CFIB that he had come to Sri Lanka to recruit 11 housemaids to work in Saudi Arabia. He alleged that though the Sri Lankan was paid the requested money, he had reneged on the promise.
According to CFIB, the Saudi victim had complained that Lahireen Saibudan wrote several bad checks.