Sports Chain in Sri Lanka: Scale, Reported Asset Restraint and the Missing Recovery Record

Evidence cut-off: 28 August 2026

Method and status. This documentary case study distinguishes allegations, regulatory determinations, reported procedural orders and final judicial findings. It does not determine civil or criminal liability. No interviews were conducted for this edition. It is independent academic and investigative analysis, not legal, financial, investment or recovery advice, and has not been reviewed or endorsed by Cardiff Metropolitan University. Documentary corrections may be submitted through the corrections channel; material corrections, clarifications and later developments will be identified in the article’s update record.

Sports Chain presents a different evidential problem from schemes for which later court reporting supplies a visible recovery process. The accessible record contains an authoritative Central Bank determination, while reporting describes an FCID investigation, arrests, remand, bail, travel restrictions, frozen bank accounts and attempts to identify property (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2023a; Sri Lanka Mirror, 2022; Al Jazeera, 2023). It does not supply the public endpoint: no final judgment, forfeiture, realised asset value or verified enforcement-related distribution to claimants was located through 28 August 2026.

The distinction is especially important because three sets of numbers recur in reporting without measuring the same thing. In October 2022, Ada Derana rendered the preliminary police estimate as at least 8,000 people and more than Rs14 billion, while The Sunday Times reported up to 8,000 people and about Rs14 billion. More than 8,000 people and more than Rs15 billion were later allegations in an FCID petition. About Rs1.4 billion was reported as money that had circulated through examined accounts. None of those figures is, on the accessible record, an audited finding of unique claimants’ net loss, the balance frozen, value forfeited or money recovered (Ada Derana, 2022; The Sunday Times, 2022b; Sri Lanka Mirror, 2022; Al Jazeera, 2023).

Sports Chain also shows why “cryptocurrency case” can be an incomplete legal description. Participants were reportedly asked to pay rupees into bank accounts or hand over cash. They were told that the money became USDT and app-displayed units, while recruitment and a so-called Power Pool affected the represented returns. The public sources reviewed do not establish that participants’ rupees were actually converted into USDT or that the displayed units existed on a public blockchain. Those sources describe cryptocurrency chiefly as the scheme’s marketing frame, internal accounting language and claimed conversion rail—not as a reason that ordinary financial-protection law could not apply (Al Jazeera, 2022; The Sunday Times, 2022a; Financial Intelligence Unit of Sri Lanka, 2024).

The answer in brief

Five conclusions are supported at the evidence cut-off.

1. CBSL made a regulatory determination, not a criminal conviction. On 21 March 2023, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) said that, following an examination under section 83C of the Banking Act, it had determined that “Sport Chain App, Sports Chain ZS Society Sri Lanka” and the unnamed directors, founders and promoters of the entities listed in its notice conducted or had conducted prohibited schemes. It asked the Attorney-General to consider instituting criminal proceedings (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2023a).

2. The represented arrangement joined rupee payments to crypto terminology and recruitment-linked returns. Reporting described personal bank-account deposits or cash, claimed conversion into USDT, internal app units, referral keys and a Power Pool that multiplied displayed units and released them gradually. These sources establish representations and participant experiences; they do not prove that every deposit was converted into cryptocurrency or that every participant received identical terms (Al Jazeera, 2022; The Sunday Times, 2022a).

3. The reported Rs14–15 billion scale remains an investigator estimate or allegation. Two October 2022 reports placed the preliminary police estimate around 8,000 people and Rs14 billion but used opposing bounds: Ada Derana reported “at least” and “more than”, while The Sunday Times reported “up to” and “about”. An FCID petition reported in April 2023 alleged more than 8,000 affected people and more than Rs15 billion. The basis of measurement was not disclosed, and no audited net-loss finding was located (Ada Derana, 2022; The Sunday Times, 2022b; Al Jazeera, 2023).

4. Reporting supports interim preservation more strongly than final recovery. Court reporting described five frozen bank accounts, while Al Jazeera reported FCID filings concerning vehicles and real property and efforts to preserve assets. However, account circulation is not a frozen balance; a freeze is not forfeiture; and property identified in an investigation is not cash distributable to claimants (Sri Lanka Mirror, 2022; Al Jazeera, 2023).

5. The public procedural trail has no located outcome after July 2023. The latest Sports Chain-specific procedural event located in the reviewed sources occurred on 24 July 2023. Sri Lanka Mirror reported that two other named suspects were arrested on returning to Sri Lanka, produced before the Colombo Chief Magistrate, released on personal bail and subjected to travel bans. Later CBSL notices preserve Sports Chain’s regulatory classification but do not disclose a later case-specific order, judgment or recovery outcome (Sri Lanka Mirror, 2023; Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2024, 2026).

Evidence labels used in this case study

The case cannot be reported accurately if every official-sounding statement is treated as a judgment. Four labels are used throughout:

• Regulatory determination means a conclusion formally announced by CBSL after its section 83C examination. It is legally significant, but it is not a conviction.
• Reported court event means contemporaneous reporting of a hearing, order, arrest, remand or bail decision where the signed order and complete case file were not publicly available for this review.
• Participant, investigator or party position means a representation, estimate, allegation, submission or denial attributed to its source. It is evidence that the position was advanced, not that a court accepted it.
• Author analysis means an inference drawn by comparing the accessible records. It is not a regulatory, judicial or forensic conclusion.

These distinctions are substantive. Without them, a police estimate becomes an established loss, an arrest becomes guilt, a freeze becomes recovery, and silence in the public record becomes an institutional refusal.

What Sports Chain was represented to be

The public reporting describes an app-based arrangement promoted in Sri Lanka from around February 2020, initially through regional networks and later through seminars and other events in Colombo. Participants told The Sunday Times that returns of 10–15 per cent a month were promoted. Al Jazeera reported that the app was downloaded through a web link rather than the main mobile-app stores and that entry required another participant’s referral key (The Sunday Times, 2022a; Al Jazeera, 2022).

The reported payment path began in ordinary currency. Participants described depositing Sri Lankan rupees into personal bank accounts or handing over cash. Some deposit slips were inspected by Al Jazeera, which expressly stated that the relationship between several named account holders and the alleged leading promoters was unclear. The reporting therefore supports the use of rupee and cash collection routes; it does not permit every sampled account to be assigned to a particular individual or legal entity (Al Jazeera, 2022).

Participants said they were told that their rupees would be converted into Tether, commonly known as USDT, and that the app would credit internal tokens or coins. The descriptions of withdrawal thresholds varied. One report referred to conversion once a 100-token threshold was reached; another described a threshold that had risen from approximately 150 to approximately 500 displayed coins. Those differences may reflect changing restrictions, distinct participant experiences or imprecise reporting. They should not be converted into a single universal contract term (Al Jazeera, 2022; The Sunday Times, 2022a).

The most distinctive reported feature was the “Power Pool”. Participants told Al Jazeera that displayed Sports Chain coins could be moved into the pool, multiplied fivefold and released back into the account gradually. Recruitment also mattered. Referral keys were required to join, and participants reported additional coins or larger returns for bringing in partners. Al Jazeera said that a meeting video described new deposits as being divided among existing participants. That evidence supports a represented relationship between recruitment, incoming contributions and participant benefits; it does not provide a complete forensic ledger of the platform (Al Jazeera, 2022).

Was there a verifiable Sports Chain cryptoasset?

No independently verifiable Sports Chain public-chain asset was established in the sources reviewed. Al Jazeera reported in August 2022 that it could not find a Sports Chain asset on CoinMarketCap. The public sources reviewed also supplied no authenticated contract address, chain explorer, transaction hash, identifiable scheme wallet or independently audited token ledger (Al Jazeera, 2022).

That is an evidence limitation, not proof that no digital entries existed in the app or that a token could never have existed elsewhere. CoinMarketCap is not an exhaustive registry. The defensible conclusion is narrower: the public record examined here does not allow the app’s displayed units to be verified as independently held or transferable cryptoassets on a public blockchain.

The distinction matters to loss and recovery. An app balance may record a promise made by the platform. It is not necessarily an asset held for the participant, a wallet balance controlled by the participant or property that investigators can trace on-chain. If rupees were collected while the app merely displayed internally generated units, the recovery trail begins with bank accounts, cash handlers and acquired property—not with the nominal number shown in the app.

What CBSL determined—and what it did not

CBSL’s notice published on 21 March 2023 stated that it had received complaints and examined Fast3Cycle International, Sports Chain and OnmaxDT under section 83C of the Banking Act. It said that the named entities and their directors, founders and promoters conducted or had conducted prohibited schemes. The notice then said that CBSL had requested the Attorney-General to consider instituting criminal proceedings (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2023a).

The sequence of legal verbs controls the procedural description:

• CBSL examined and determined the scheme’s regulatory status;
• CBSL requested that the Attorney-General consider criminal proceedings;
• the notice did not announce an Attorney-General decision, a filed section 83C charge, a conviction, forfeiture or compensation order.

The notice also did not identify the Sports Chain directors, founders or promoters to whom its collective wording referred. A public article should not infer that every person named in separate reporting was necessarily included in, or individually adjudicated by, the regulatory notice.

On 31 May 2023, CBSL repeated Sports Chain’s inclusion among prohibited schemes and denied claims that it had reached agreements with the listed institutions. The notice did not identify who made the agreement claim and did not attribute it specifically to Sports Chain. It is an official correction of a public narrative, not a new Sports Chain prosecution or settlement decision (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2023b).

The Financial Intelligence Unit of Sri Lanka made the crypto connection explicit on 14 January 2024. Its notice, which cited CBSL’s section 83C determinations, included Sports Chain among the prohibited schemes found promoting involvement in cryptocurrencies. This confirms that cryptocurrency promotion formed part of the official regulatory concern; it does not prove that a particular Sports Chain token existed or that deposits were actually converted on-chain (Financial Intelligence Unit of Sri Lanka, 2024).

Why legal-tender status is not the controlling question

Section 83C(1) prohibits initiating, offering, promoting, advertising, conducting, financing, managing or directing a scheme in which a participant contributes money or monetary value and the promised benefits depend largely on growth in participants or their contributions. Its definition of “monetary value” includes a medium of exchange whether or not redeemable in money, stored value, a payment instrument and credit to an account. The Banking (Amendment) Act No. 24 of 2024 inserted sections after section 83C but did not amend section 83C itself (Sri Lanka, 1988, s.83C(1); Sri Lanka, 2024).

On the statutory text, those labels would not by themselves remove an arrangement from section 83C if its contribution and dependency elements were otherwise met. No published Sports Chain judgment deciding this point was located, so this is statutory analysis rather than a case holding (Sri Lanka, 1988, s.83C(1)).

CBSL’s separate virtual-currency warning of 12 July 2022 said that it had not licensed or authorised virtual-currency schemes, initial coin offerings, mining operations or exchanges and described virtual currencies as unregulated financial instruments. Lack of authorisation and lack of legal-tender status are important consumer-risk facts. They do not, by themselves, establish that every cryptocurrency transaction is criminal or prove an individual’s liability for Sports Chain (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2022).

The reported procedural record

The chronology below separates the event date from the date on which the supporting account was published. Because no complete police B-report—the report used to place and update an investigation before a Magistrate’s Court—or reliable case number was located, the entries remain reported procedural events rather than a reconstruction from the official court file.

Event date	Publication date	What the accessible record supports
By 15 August 2022	15 August 2022	Participant allegations had been published, and a senior police officer confirmed that an inquiry was under way. This was an investigation, not a finding (Al Jazeera, 2022).
12 September 2022	18 September 2022	The Sunday Times reported that an attorney filed a case for a complainant alleging a Rs2.4 million loss and that a Colombo Additional Magistrate imposed travel restrictions on five people and issued notice for December (The Sunday Times, 2022a).
By 14 October 2022	14 October 2022	Sri Lanka Mirror reported that two Chinese suspects had been intercepted at the airport and remanded. State Counsel reportedly described the inquiry as preliminary, said approximately Rs1.4 billion had circulated through accounts and referred to 70 complaints. Five accounts were reportedly frozen (Sri Lanka Mirror, 2022).
27 October 2022	27–30 October 2022	Three Sri Lankan suspects and the two Chinese suspects were reportedly produced and remanded to 10 November; another Sri Lankan suspect had reportedly received bail. Ada Derana rendered the preliminary police estimate as at least 8,000 people and more than Rs14 billion, while The Sunday Times reported up to 8,000 people and about Rs14 billion. Both said the inquiry was still determining the scale (Ada Derana, 2022; The Sunday Times, 2022b).
December 2022	5 April 2023	Eight suspects who had been remanded were reported to have received bail, subject to conditions. The signed bail orders were not available for this review (Al Jazeera, 2023).
March 2023	5 April 2023	A ninth suspect was reportedly granted bail. At a late-March hearing, FCID told the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court that its investigation was continuing (Al Jazeera, 2023).
21 March 2023	21 March 2023	CBSL announced its section 83C determination and request that the Attorney-General consider criminal proceedings (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2023a).
24 July 2023	25 July 2023	Two other named suspects returning from Dubai were reportedly arrested, produced before the Colombo Chief Magistrate, granted personal bail and subjected to travel bans (Sri Lanka Mirror, 2023).

The early arrest chronology contains a material conflict. Ada Derana later placed the Chinese suspects’ airport arrest on 12 September 2022, while Sri Lanka Mirror indicates that interception and remand had occurred by 14 October and Al Jazeera later reconstructed an October sequence. This article records the conflict and does not represent the exact arrest date as conclusively settled (Ada Derana, 2022; Sri Lanka Mirror, 2022; Al Jazeera, 2023).

Al Jazeera’s April 2023 report used the word “charged” in relation to nine suspects and money laundering. The same report said that FCID told the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court at a late-March 2023 hearing that its investigation was continuing and did not provide a primary charge sheet, High Court indictment or reliable case number. The precise charging status is therefore not independently verifiable. The safer formulation is that nine suspects had reportedly been arrested and brought before the Court during an FCID money-laundering investigation reported as continuing in March 2023; they had later received bail (Al Jazeera, 2023).

Arrest, remand and bail answer procedural questions, not the merits. Remand does not prove guilt; bail does not establish exoneration; and a travel restriction does not prove that a person attempted to flee. No final judicial assessment resolving individual liability was located.

What the rupee figures actually measure

The case’s numerical claims changed as complaints and the investigation developed. Change is not necessarily contradiction: an inquiry may identify more transactions over time. The problem is that the accessible reports do not define a common metric.

Event or source date	Public figure	What can safely be said
October 2022 court reporting	About Rs1.4 billion	State Counsel was reported as saying this amount had circulated through examined accounts. It was not identified as loss, the frozen balance, forfeited property or recovered money (Sri Lanka Mirror, 2022).
27 October 2022 police briefing	Roughly 8,000 people and roughly Rs14 billion	Opposing bounds in two reports of the same preliminary police estimate: Ada Derana said at least 8,000 and more than Rs14 billion; The Sunday Times said up to 8,000 and about Rs14 billion. Both reported that investigators were still determining the scale (Ada Derana, 2022; The Sunday Times, 2022b).
FCID petition reported 5 April 2023	More than 8,000 people and more than Rs15 billion	An investigator allegation reported from a court petition; not a judicial or audited net-loss finding (Al Jazeera, 2023).

The Rs15 billion figure may refer to money received, gross deposits, a complaint-based total or another investigative measure. The report does not establish whether withdrawals were deducted, whether duplicate claims were reconciled, whether displayed app balances or promised returns were included, or whether every participant was counted once. It should therefore be described as the FCID’s allegation—not simply as “the loss”.

The same applies to the participant count. “More than 8,000” is a reported investigator estimate, not a published verified claimant register. Individual loss accounts can demonstrate experience and help explain the scheme’s operation, but they cannot independently establish the scheme-wide total.

Reported asset preservation was not participant recovery

Reporting describes provisional efforts to stop dissipation and identify property. Sri Lanka Mirror reported in October 2022 that travel restrictions had been imposed on seven reported organisers and five bank accounts had been frozen. Al Jazeera later reported that FCID filings concerned bank-account freezes, vehicles, apartments and a house allegedly connected with scheme funds, alongside efforts to preserve assets (Sri Lanka Mirror, 2022; Al Jazeera, 2023).

These reports do not disclose:

• the balances in the five accounts when frozen;
• whether each freeze was confirmed, extended, varied, released or remained effective;
• a complete property schedule and verified ownership record;
• a final finding that any identified property represented criminal proceeds;
• a forfeiture or confiscation order;
• the amount realised by sale or transferred into public custody; or
• a verified claimant method and first distribution.

The Rs1.4 billion reportedly circulated through accounts cannot fill those gaps. Transaction flow can exceed the balance remaining at any one time, and it may include repeated transfers. Calling it “recovered” would create a financial outcome the source does not report.

The legal route from restraint to distribution

Section 35 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act had, from the Act’s enactment in 2006, expressly treated an offence under section 83C of the Banking Act as “unlawful activity”. That statutory classification does not mean that CBSL’s regulatory determination alone proves money laundering: the prosecution must still establish the elements of the money-laundering offence before the High Court. A conviction for the underlying section 83C offence is not itself required to prove money laundering, but neither a regulatory notice nor an investigating officer’s allegation is a substitute for that proof (Sri Lanka, 2006, ss.3(3), 35; Sri Lanka, 2011; Sri Lanka, 2026, ss.4, 31).

At the time of the reported Sports Chain account freezes in 2022, the applicable framework was the 2006 Act as amended by Act No. 40 of 2011. A police freezing order initially operated for seven days; the issuing officer was required to apply ex parte to the High Court within that period for confirmation. Extensions could not exceed three months at a time or two years in aggregate, although a confirmed order could continue through trial and appeal where an indictment had been filed. The accessible reporting does not identify the statutory basis, signed orders, confirmation dates or extensions relating to the five reported Sports Chain accounts. It therefore cannot establish that every reported restraint passed through those stages or remained effective (Sri Lanka, 2006, ss.7–8; Sri Lanka, 2011, s.6).

Act No. 16 of 2026, certified on 4 August and published in the Gazette on 7 August 2026, now allows an initial police freezing order to operate for fourteen working days. High Court extensions may last up to four months at a time and three years in aggregate. The amendments broaden tracing to beneficial ownership and connected property, expressly include virtual assets within “property”, and permit the High Court—after confirming a freezing order—to appoint a Receiver or Special Manager or direct the Proceeds of Crime Management Authority under the Proceeds of Crime Act No. 5 of 2025 to protect, preserve, manage or dispose of the frozen property. Those are preservation and management powers; they do not themselves establish guilt, forfeiture or claimant recovery (Sri Lanka, 2026, ss.8–14, 31).

Forfeiture under section 13 of the money-laundering legislation remains dependent on a money-laundering conviction. The 2026 amendments permit a person affected by a forfeiture order to apply within thirty days for compensation for loss caused by that order, payable from forfeited property, and preserve a separate route through which an uninvolved bona fide claimant may seek exclusion of property from freezing. Neither provision creates automatic reimbursement of Sports Chain deposits. Separate conviction-based and non-conviction-based recovery and victim-related routes exist under the Proceeds of Crime Act, but no Sports Chain-specific application, management direction, forfeiture order or distribution under either amended framework was located (Sri Lanka, 2025, ss.117–128, 131–136, 150; Sri Lanka, 2026, ss.15–17).

Section 83C separately provides for CBSL investigation and transfer of evidence to law enforcement. Its High Court mechanism is directed at prohibiting the conduct of a scheme; it should not be described as a general asset-forfeiture order (Sri Lanka, 1988, ss.83C(3), (7)–(8); Sri Lanka, 2024).

The substantive provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Act commenced on 1 June 2025. General legal availability does not establish that the Act has been invoked in Sports Chain, that any earlier reported restraint has been brought within its procedures or that claimant payment has followed (Government of Sri Lanka, 2025).

The recovery chain must therefore be stated in stages:

1. a potential asset is identified and linked by investigators;
2. dealings may be frozen or restrained by lawful process;
3. ownership, third-party rights and proceeds status are determined;
4. property is finally forfeited or otherwise lawfully made available;
5. value is realised and placed under accountable custody; and
6. verified claimants receive a distribution under an identified legal method.

The accessible reports describe activity corresponding to the first two stages. They do not publicly demonstrate completion of the later stages.

Public denials and defence positions

The CBSL determination does not remove the need to record material public positions accurately.

In September 2022, Shamal Keerthi Bandara told The Sunday Times that he did not lead or operate the platform and had not personally accepted investments. He described himself as an investor who helped others obtain USDT, denied that the arrangement was a pyramid scheme and said a token listing was expected in January 2023. This was his public position, not a finding that resolved the allegations (The Sunday Times, 2022a).

Al Jazeera later reported that lawyers for accused persons denied that their clients had created or controlled the app and disputed the money-laundering case. Those positions must not be converted either into proof of innocence or into admissions. No final judgment accepting or rejecting them was located (Al Jazeera, 2023).

No fresh pre-publication correspondence was undertaken for this edition. The article therefore does not state that any person failed or refused to respond. Documentary corrections and material public positions can be added through the corrections process.

The latest public position

The latest Sports Chain-specific procedural event located in the reviewed sources occurred on 24 July 2023 and was reported the following day. Sri Lanka Mirror reported that two other named suspects were arrested on returning to Sri Lanka, produced before the Colombo Chief Magistrate, granted personal bail and prohibited from leaving the country. It also reported that the CID had received 70 complaints (Sri Lanka Mirror, 2023).

CBSL supplied a later group-level update on 19 December 2024. Sports Chain appeared among 20 institutions concerning which CBSL said it had provided information and records to, and collaborated with, law-enforcement authorities. CBSL added that some listed matters were before courts while others remained under investigation. It did not identify which of those two statuses applied to Sports Chain and did not disclose a case number, charge, order or asset outcome (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2024).

On 5 August 2026, CBSL continued to carry “Sport Chain app, Sport Chain zs society Sri Lanka” on its consolidated list of prohibited schemes. The new determination announced in that notice concerned TM App. Sports Chain’s inclusion is evidence that the published regulatory classification remained in place; it is not a new Sports Chain determination or proof that the scheme was still operating (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2026).

Through 28 August 2026, the accessible record does not establish:

• a reliable public Magistrate’s Court B-report or case number;
• the Attorney-General’s decision on the section 83C referral;
• a primary charge sheet or High Court indictment;
• a trial judgment, conviction, acquittal or appeal;
• a final asset inventory or current status of the reported account freezes;
• a final forfeiture, confiscation, release or repatriation order;
• a realised balance available to claimants; or
• a verified enforcement-related distribution from restrained or forfeited property to participants.

This should not be inverted into a claim that nothing happened after the investigation began or that an authority refused to compensate participants. The record documents investigation, regulatory action and reported interim asset-preservation measures. The public outcome trail stops before final liability and verified redress (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2023a, 2024, 2026; Sri Lanka Mirror, 2022, 2023; Al Jazeera, 2023).

What this case adds to the wider series

Sports Chain sharpens four questions for comparison with OnmaxDT, MTFE and Fast3Cycle International.

First, crypto language can obscure an underlying contribution-and-recruitment structure. The reported entry point was rupees and cash, the represented conversion was into USDT and internal units, and recruitment influenced benefits. Consumer protection does not need to wait for cryptocurrency to become legal tender before examining that structure (Al Jazeera, 2022; The Sunday Times, 2022a; Sri Lanka, 1988, s.83C(1)).

Second, an app balance is not proof of an asset. A participant may see units, returns and a withdrawal value without controlling a wallet or holding an independently transferable token. Public education should teach people to distinguish a platform’s internal promise from an asset verifiable through an independent network or custodian.

Third, restraint needs an outcomes ledger. The public should be able to connect the number of complaints, verified net claims, balances restrained, property finally forfeited, value realised and distributions completed. Sports Chain reporting contains striking numbers at the first half of that chain but no located public account of the second half.

Fourth, procedural precision protects both claimants and accused persons. A CBSL determination is not a conviction; an arrest is not a finding; bail is not an acquittal; and an investigator’s estimate is not an audited loss. Preserving those distinctions does not weaken the investigation. It identifies exactly what further documents are needed to make stronger conclusions.

The case therefore supports the series’ emerging thesis: Sri Lanka’s consumer-protection problem is not explained solely by the absence of a comprehensive cryptoasset regime. Existing law can address schemes meeting section 83C’s contribution and dependency elements and provides routes for preserving suspected proceeds. The unresolved question is whether the enforcement process can produce a transparent, legally durable and timely route from identified property to verified claimant payment (Sri Lanka, 1988, s.83C(1); Sri Lanka, 2006, ss.7–15, 35; Sri Lanka, 2011; Sri Lanka, 2025; Sri Lanka, 2026).

Update triggers

This assessment should receive a dated review if a reliable case or B-report number, an Attorney-General decision or primary charging document, a signed restraint, forfeiture or release order, a judgment or appeal, an authenticated asset-realisation statement, or independently verifiable evidence of an enforcement-related claimant distribution becomes public.

Until then, the proper conclusion is narrow: the public record documents a prohibited-scheme determination, an FCID investigation reported as continuing in March 2023 and reported asset-preservation measures, but it does not establish a completed recovery pathway or enforcement-related distribution to Sports Chain claimants.

References

Ada Derana (2022) ‘Police shed light on massive fake crypto investment scheme’, 27 October. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Al Jazeera (2022) ‘Sri Lankans make crypto Ponzi scam claims’, 15 August. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Al Jazeera (2023) ‘After Al Jazeera story, Sri Lanka says crypto scheme a pyramid’, 5 April. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Central Bank of Sri Lanka (2022) ‘Public Awareness in Relation to the Use of Virtual Currencies in Sri Lanka’, 12 July. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Central Bank of Sri Lanka (2023a) ‘Notice to General Public: Fast3Cycle International, Sport Chain and OnmaxDT’, 21 March. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Central Bank of Sri Lanka (2023b) ‘Participating in Pyramid Schemes is a Punishable Offence!’, 31 May. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Central Bank of Sri Lanka (2024) ‘Progress on Combating Prohibited Schemes under Section 83(C) of the Banking Act No. 30 of 1988, as amended’, 19 December. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Central Bank of Sri Lanka (2026) ‘Notice to General Public on Prohibited Pyramid Schemes’, 5 August. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Financial Intelligence Unit of Sri Lanka (2024) ‘Protecting the Public from Crypto Investment Scams’, 14 January. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Government of Sri Lanka (2025) Order under section 1(2) of the Proceeds of Crime Act, Gazette Extraordinary No. 2438/24, 27 May. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka (1988) Banking Act, No. 30 of 1988, as amended, s.83C. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka (2006) Prevention of Money Laundering Act, No. 5 of 2006. Certified 6 March; published as a Supplement to Part II of the Gazette, 10 March. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka (2011) Prevention of Money Laundering (Amendment) Act, No. 40 of 2011. Certified 6 October; published as a Supplement to Part II of the Gazette, 7 October. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka (2024) Banking (Amendment) Act, No. 24 of 2024. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka (2025) Proceeds of Crime Act, No. 5 of 2025. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka (2026) Prevention of Money Laundering (Amendment) Act, No. 16 of 2026. Certified 4 August; published as a Supplement to Part II of the Gazette, 7 August. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka Mirror (2022) ‘Son and daughter-in-law of biggest Chinese investor in SL remanded’, 14 October. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka Mirror (2023) ‘Couple arrested at BIA over pyramid scheme’, 25 July. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

The Sunday Times (2022a) ‘Cloud over Sports Chain as cryptocurrency investors lose millions’, 18 September. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

The Sunday Times (2022b) ‘8,000 people defrauded of up to Rs.14bn in cryptocurrency scam; two Chinese, three Lankans held: Police’, 30 October. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).