Sri Lanka It's Happening

June 20, 2004

A tourism promotion theme in the old days used to be 'Sri Lanka Paradise', then as the Hikkaduwa area achieved international notoriety for sex tourim, people started to say 'Sri Lanka gay paradise' and the term fell out of use (Hikkaduwa's reputation has also recovered somewhat).

Today an appropriate theme would be Sri Lanka Sammer's Paradise. All kinds of international racketeers are setting up shop with thinly disguised scams. Sri Lankan authorities as usual turn a blind eye. (To investigating these companies mean more work and government employees and work are poles apart)

A 'popular' scam is a pyramid scheme thinly disguised as an effort to sell artistic gold coins. They are very sophisticated, their marketing materials even knock down pyramid schemes and explain that their's is not a simple old pyramid and Sri Lankans being the gullible lot they fall for it.

This particular scam has been going on for quite some time but thankfully newspapers (which happily carried and continue to carry their advertisements) have finally published articles explainging their modus operandi. The Central Bank to their great credit have taken out newspaper adverts cautioning people against such scams. Whether people would heed these warnings remains to be seen.

Posted by raditha at June 20, 2004 1:04 PM