Sanath Jayasuriya , Sri Lankan cricket legend and World Cup winner, has been accused of smuggling ‘rotten betel nuts’ into India.
According to media reports, a businessman named Jayasuriya and two other cricketers (whose names were not revealed) after the Director of Revenue Intelligence seized betel nuts worth several crores of rupees in Nagpur.
The businessman was interrogated by the Director of Revenue Intelligence and that was when he named Jayasuriya.
A letter has now been sent out to the Government of Sri Lanka and Jayasuriya along with the other two cricketers will soon fly out to Mumbai for questioning. Media reports further stated the betel nuts were shipped from Indonesia to Sri Lanka before being smuggled to India.
The reason behind this smuggling could have been to exploit the South Asian Free Trade Area.
Under SAFTA, taxes are waived off for consignments between Sri Lanka and India if the goods are produced indigenously in those countries and sold to each other. However, there is a huge import duty (108 per cent) if betel nuts are imported from Indonesia.
This is not the first whiff of controversy for Jayasuriya. He was charged with breaching the ICC Anti-Corruption Code.
Jayasuriya, one of the heroes of Sri Lanka’s 1996 World Cup triumph and a former chairman of selectors was charged with breaching the ICC Code of Conduct in October.
Jayasuriya is one of Sri Lankan cricket’s greatest heroes. In 445 ODIs, he scored 13430 runs including 28 hundreds. In 110 Tests, he scored 6973 runs including 14 hundreds.
He was also a dangerous slow left-arm bowler and has to his credit 323 wickets from 445 ODIs.
