Treasury heist of US$ 2.5mn to eat into reserves: Maithri Gunaratne

The US$ 2.5 million heist involving Treasury funds will have a serious negative impact on Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves position, President of the Free Lawyers Organisation and President’s Counsel Maithri Gunaratne said yesterday.

Sri Lanka’s Official Reserve Assets stood at US$ 7,270 billion at the end of February 2026, before declining to US$ 7,019 billion at the end of March.

Gunaratne warned that the loss of US$ 2.5 million would place further pressure on the country’s reserves. “With US$ 2.5 million gone, the reserves will inevitably see a dip,” he said.

The heist is seen as a major setback for Sri Lanka, which is still recovering from the severe economic crisis of 2022 after Colombo defaulted on its US$ 46 billion external debt.

Sri Lankan officials reportedly detected the missing US$ 2.5 million only after the Australian creditor complained that the debt repayment had not been received.

Gunaratne also said recovering the stolen funds would be difficult, as more than six months had already passed since the incident.

“It will be a very tall order to recover this money now. The funds taken may already have been spent by those responsible,” he added. (Shirajiv S.)