Why did a Singapore-based company registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) collect millions of Euros and hundreds of thousands of dollars between August and October 2012 from three foreign entities and how did these payments get channeled into Sri Lanka? Who did they go to?
These questions were raised anew this week in Sri Lanka with the airing of a show by ‘Four Corners’–Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s leading investigative journalism programme–that explored, among other things, why Aspen Medical Pty Ltd, an Australian company, figured among those who had paid money into this offshore account owned by businessman Nimal Perera.
The account was also later linked to an investigation into the infamous “Airbus bribes”.
By Namini Wijedasa
The Krrish case
The story starts with the launch of what is called ‘the Krrish case’. On a complaint by the JVP’s Wasantha Samarasinghe, the convener of the Voice against Corruption, the then Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) of the Police Department looked into whether fraud had occurred in the lease of 43 acres at Colombo Fort to Krrish Transworks Colombo (Pvt) Ltd.
But as the probe continued, it brought into the open hefty payments made into a Singapore-based BVI company named Sabre Vision Holdings Ltd (SVHL) owned by Mr Perera. They were ostensibly fees for “services” to a Dutch company named EN-Projects which had won a turnkey contract from Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Health to build hospitals in Hambantota and Nuwara Eliya.
Mr Perera is distancing himself from SVHL. He tweeted this week that SVHL was a “subsidiary of a diversified business entity found in 1918 in Sri Lanka & not owned by me, though I was named a beneficiary when the company I was employed [sic] acquired the company in question & appointed me as the Managing Director”.
He avoided naming the company he was employed at but subsequently quote-tweeted a thread by another Twitter user, saying, “I recommend this thread, if you’re interested”. In it, the company was revealed to be Delmege.
“I had a quick chat with @nimalhperera yesterday and was told that the BVI payments were for a project conducted under Delmege, signed by Delmege before taking over,” one of the tweets in the thread said. “He was just the beneficiary as the MD [Managing Director] on the account. A normal practice I have seen.”
Nimal Perera being interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist for the channel's "Four-Corners' investigation programme
Dhammika Perera denies
However, Delmege Ltd Chairman Dhammika Perera this week categorically denied to the Sunday Times that SVHL was ever part of the company’s portfolio when he bought Delmege in June 2011. “It was a private company held by a private individual,” he said via telephone. “It was not part of the valuation of Delmege when we bought Delmege. How can something that is not owned by Delmege Forsyth & Co Ltd be part of the valuation?”
“Sabre Vision never belonged to Delmege,” he reiterated. “If Sabre Vision belonged to Delmege, the payments should’ve come to Delmege. Delmege never received any monies or profits or income from the hospitals project. You can say that.”
Multiple employees and directors of the Delmege Group have confirmed this. The annual statements of accounts of its companies do not reflect payments–either made or due–from EN-Projects or any other entity connected with the Hambantota-Nuwara Eliya hospitals project. Copies of bank transactions clearly show the monies from SVHL reached Mr Nimal Perera’s personal accounts at HSBC and Sampath Bank.
Facts presented to the Colombo Fort Magistrate Court, which are now part of the public case record, also show that Mr Perera paid out Rs 188mn from his HSBC and Sampath Bank accounts–both of which received funds from SVHL–in October and December 2012 to purchase a property at No. 7, Gower Street, Colombo 5. In July 2017, he sold it for Rs 325mn to businessman Nandana Lokuwithana, owner of Ceylon Steel Corporation, the Horana Tyre factory and the new cement plant in Hambantota.
Delmege Chairman Dhammika Perera: Says his company has nothing to do with the Singapore-based SVHL, a company which transferred funds to Nimal Perera's local accounts in Sri Lanka
Sabre Vision Holdings Ltd
The Colombo Fort Magistrate Court first heard in 2016 that the personal HSBC and Sampath Bank accounts of Mr Perera—who was the President of Ceylon Premier Sports—received a total of Rs 70mn between October and December 2012 from Krrish, reportedly to be spent on the Super Sevens Rugby Tournament in 2013 and sports development. That’s where the investigation kicked off. Copies of all these financial transactions as well as other documents are contained in official files.
Mr Perera told police he had accepted the funds on the request of Namal Rajapaksa, son of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the then President. Between May 2013 and June 2014 he gave the money to Namal in two cash payments of Rs 35mn each at Namal’s Gowers Corporate Services (Pvt) Ltd office at 7, Gower Street, Colombo 5, he said.
Namal separately gave a statement to the FCID that he handed over the Rs 70mn to a “finance committee” in charge of the Super Sevens Rugby Tournament. However, FCID interviews with committee members yielded no evidence to this effect; nor were there any records of the money having been spent on the event.
On a Magisterial order dated July 2017, a team led by FCID Director Dhammika Priyantha obtained and analysed the transaction details of Mr Perera’s personal HSBC and Sampath Bank accounts.
They zeroed in on a payment of Rs 48,750,000 made to Mr Perera’s rupee HSBC account on March 20, 2013. The FCID traced that this payment, an equivalent of 300,000 euros, was first received into his euro HSBC account from the Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) account of a company named Sabre Vision Holdings Ltd (SVHL) with an address of 6 Eu Tong Sen Street 1103, Singapore 059817.
On December 4, 2012, Mr Perera’s Sampath Bank account also received the equivalent of 350,000 euros (Rs. 58,466,925.00) from the SCB account of SVHL.
The mysterious Italian
Mr Perera in a statement to FCID said these euro transfers were from an Italian he met on business travel to Italy. He named him “Anke Ballisteri” (phonetic spelling). He said Mr Ballisteri transmitted him the monies to him to invest in the Colombo Stock Exchange; and that he, Mr Perera, accordingly bought stocks in various companies with Mr Ballisteri’s funds in combination, not separately, with his own monies.
The arrangement, which he said was based on trust, was for the payment of an annual commission of five percent. But Mr Perera said that, at the time his statement was recorded, he had returned neither the capital nor interest to Mr Ballisteri.
He maintained he did not know the Italian’s postal or email address; and could not say where or when he met him during his trip to Italy—even after the FCID showed him records of his foreign travel obtained from the Department of Immigration and Emigration. A Mr Ballisteri was never traced.
Mr Perera claimed that since the monies in his accounts were from Mr Ballisteri, SVHL could be connected with the Italian. In additional statements, Mr Perera reiterated to the FCID that the 300,000 euros to his personal HSBC account and the 350,000 euros into his personal Sampath Bank account were from Mr Ballisteri. He repeated that he had no documents or other details to prove the Italian’s address or identity. Neither did he have a phone number for him and was unlikely to find contact information in future.
Following the airing of the ‘Four Corners’ programme, Mr Perera tweeted a contradictory version of this transaction. He said: “The Italian businessman mentioned in the article was introduced to me when I was looking to furnish my house. He owned an interior design company in Italy & and provided his services to many who could afford him. He died unexpectedly from an illness he thought was under control.”
The Sunday Times did not receive a response from Mr Perera to a written question seeking a clarification regarding this discrepancy.
Sabre Vision owner found
On May 22, 2018, the FCID obtained information through a mutual legal assistance (MLA) request to Singapore under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act No. 5 of 2006. It showed the authorised signatory of the SCB account held by SVHL to be Wannakawattawaduge Don Nimal Hemasiri Perera–and not an Italian.
An MLA request to the BVI, where SVHL was registered, showed the beneficial owner of SVHL was the same Wannakawattawaduge Don Nimal Hemasiri Perera. SVHL was originally opened in Singapore by the former Group CEO of Delmege Forsyth & Co Ltd, it divulged.
Records obtained via the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka then revealed several payments made to SVHL’s accounts between August 21, 2012 and October 31, 2012. One remittance was from the Germany-based Deutsche Bank Privat–Und Geschaeftskunden Ag account of the German company, Juga Bau GmbH.
Another was from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) bank account in Australia of Aspen Medical Pty Limited, the Australian company. A third was from the Rabo Bank Nederland account in Netherlands owned by the Dutch company Enraf-Nonius (EN-Projects).
Remitted within 42 days, the payments totaled 4,330,785.02 euros and USD 536,909.80. These transaction documents are available in files that also contain other papers related to this case and were purportedly for “consultation”.
These questions were raised anew this week in Sri Lanka with the airing of a show by ‘Four Corners’–Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s leading investigative journalism programme–that explored, among other things, why Aspen Medical Pty Ltd, an Australian company, figured among those who had paid money into this offshore account owned by businessman Nimal Perera.
The account was also later linked to an investigation into the infamous “Airbus bribes”.
By Namini Wijedasa
The Krrish case
The story starts with the launch of what is called ‘the Krrish case’. On a complaint by the JVP’s Wasantha Samarasinghe, the convener of the Voice against Corruption, the then Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) of the Police Department looked into whether fraud had occurred in the lease of 43 acres at Colombo Fort to Krrish Transworks Colombo (Pvt) Ltd.
But as the probe continued, it brought into the open hefty payments made into a Singapore-based BVI company named Sabre Vision Holdings Ltd (SVHL) owned by Mr Perera. They were ostensibly fees for “services” to a Dutch company named EN-Projects which had won a turnkey contract from Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Health to build hospitals in Hambantota and Nuwara Eliya.
Mr Perera is distancing himself from SVHL. He tweeted this week that SVHL was a “subsidiary of a diversified business entity found in 1918 in Sri Lanka & not owned by me, though I was named a beneficiary when the company I was employed [sic] acquired the company in question & appointed me as the Managing Director”.
He avoided naming the company he was employed at but subsequently quote-tweeted a thread by another Twitter user, saying, “I recommend this thread, if you’re interested”. In it, the company was revealed to be Delmege.
“I had a quick chat with @nimalhperera yesterday and was told that the BVI payments were for a project conducted under Delmege, signed by Delmege before taking over,” one of the tweets in the thread said. “He was just the beneficiary as the MD [Managing Director] on the account. A normal practice I have seen.”
Nimal Perera being interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist for the channel's "Four-Corners' investigation programme
Dhammika Perera denies
However, Delmege Ltd Chairman Dhammika Perera this week categorically denied to the Sunday Times that SVHL was ever part of the company’s portfolio when he bought Delmege in June 2011. “It was a private company held by a private individual,” he said via telephone. “It was not part of the valuation of Delmege when we bought Delmege. How can something that is not owned by Delmege Forsyth & Co Ltd be part of the valuation?”
“Sabre Vision never belonged to Delmege,” he reiterated. “If Sabre Vision belonged to Delmege, the payments should’ve come to Delmege. Delmege never received any monies or profits or income from the hospitals project. You can say that.”
Multiple employees and directors of the Delmege Group have confirmed this. The annual statements of accounts of its companies do not reflect payments–either made or due–from EN-Projects or any other entity connected with the Hambantota-Nuwara Eliya hospitals project. Copies of bank transactions clearly show the monies from SVHL reached Mr Nimal Perera’s personal accounts at HSBC and Sampath Bank.
Facts presented to the Colombo Fort Magistrate Court, which are now part of the public case record, also show that Mr Perera paid out Rs 188mn from his HSBC and Sampath Bank accounts–both of which received funds from SVHL–in October and December 2012 to purchase a property at No. 7, Gower Street, Colombo 5. In July 2017, he sold it for Rs 325mn to businessman Nandana Lokuwithana, owner of Ceylon Steel Corporation, the Horana Tyre factory and the new cement plant in Hambantota.
Delmege Chairman Dhammika Perera: Says his company has nothing to do with the Singapore-based SVHL, a company which transferred funds to Nimal Perera's local accounts in Sri Lanka
Sabre Vision Holdings Ltd
The Colombo Fort Magistrate Court first heard in 2016 that the personal HSBC and Sampath Bank accounts of Mr Perera—who was the President of Ceylon Premier Sports—received a total of Rs 70mn between October and December 2012 from Krrish, reportedly to be spent on the Super Sevens Rugby Tournament in 2013 and sports development. That’s where the investigation kicked off. Copies of all these financial transactions as well as other documents are contained in official files.
Mr Perera told police he had accepted the funds on the request of Namal Rajapaksa, son of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the then President. Between May 2013 and June 2014 he gave the money to Namal in two cash payments of Rs 35mn each at Namal’s Gowers Corporate Services (Pvt) Ltd office at 7, Gower Street, Colombo 5, he said.
Namal separately gave a statement to the FCID that he handed over the Rs 70mn to a “finance committee” in charge of the Super Sevens Rugby Tournament. However, FCID interviews with committee members yielded no evidence to this effect; nor were there any records of the money having been spent on the event.
On a Magisterial order dated July 2017, a team led by FCID Director Dhammika Priyantha obtained and analysed the transaction details of Mr Perera’s personal HSBC and Sampath Bank accounts.
They zeroed in on a payment of Rs 48,750,000 made to Mr Perera’s rupee HSBC account on March 20, 2013. The FCID traced that this payment, an equivalent of 300,000 euros, was first received into his euro HSBC account from the Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) account of a company named Sabre Vision Holdings Ltd (SVHL) with an address of 6 Eu Tong Sen Street 1103, Singapore 059817.
On December 4, 2012, Mr Perera’s Sampath Bank account also received the equivalent of 350,000 euros (Rs. 58,466,925.00) from the SCB account of SVHL.
The mysterious Italian
Mr Perera in a statement to FCID said these euro transfers were from an Italian he met on business travel to Italy. He named him “Anke Ballisteri” (phonetic spelling). He said Mr Ballisteri transmitted him the monies to him to invest in the Colombo Stock Exchange; and that he, Mr Perera, accordingly bought stocks in various companies with Mr Ballisteri’s funds in combination, not separately, with his own monies.
The arrangement, which he said was based on trust, was for the payment of an annual commission of five percent. But Mr Perera said that, at the time his statement was recorded, he had returned neither the capital nor interest to Mr Ballisteri.
He maintained he did not know the Italian’s postal or email address; and could not say where or when he met him during his trip to Italy—even after the FCID showed him records of his foreign travel obtained from the Department of Immigration and Emigration. A Mr Ballisteri was never traced.
Mr Perera claimed that since the monies in his accounts were from Mr Ballisteri, SVHL could be connected with the Italian. In additional statements, Mr Perera reiterated to the FCID that the 300,000 euros to his personal HSBC account and the 350,000 euros into his personal Sampath Bank account were from Mr Ballisteri. He repeated that he had no documents or other details to prove the Italian’s address or identity. Neither did he have a phone number for him and was unlikely to find contact information in future.
Following the airing of the ‘Four Corners’ programme, Mr Perera tweeted a contradictory version of this transaction. He said: “The Italian businessman mentioned in the article was introduced to me when I was looking to furnish my house. He owned an interior design company in Italy & and provided his services to many who could afford him. He died unexpectedly from an illness he thought was under control.”
The Sunday Times did not receive a response from Mr Perera to a written question seeking a clarification regarding this discrepancy.
Sabre Vision owner found
On May 22, 2018, the FCID obtained information through a mutual legal assistance (MLA) request to Singapore under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act No. 5 of 2006. It showed the authorised signatory of the SCB account held by SVHL to be Wannakawattawaduge Don Nimal Hemasiri Perera–and not an Italian.
An MLA request to the BVI, where SVHL was registered, showed the beneficial owner of SVHL was the same Wannakawattawaduge Don Nimal Hemasiri Perera. SVHL was originally opened in Singapore by the former Group CEO of Delmege Forsyth & Co Ltd, it divulged.
Records obtained via the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka then revealed several payments made to SVHL’s accounts between August 21, 2012 and October 31, 2012. One remittance was from the Germany-based Deutsche Bank Privat–Und Geschaeftskunden Ag account of the German company, Juga Bau GmbH.
Another was from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) bank account in Australia of Aspen Medical Pty Limited, the Australian company. A third was from the Rabo Bank Nederland account in Netherlands owned by the Dutch company Enraf-Nonius (EN-Projects).
Remitted within 42 days, the payments totaled 4,330,785.02 euros and USD 536,909.80. These transaction documents are available in files that also contain other papers related to this case and were purportedly for “consultation”.
