22 Sri Lankan Monks Arrested with Record 242 Pounds of Cannabis at Airport

Twenty-two Sri Lankan monks returning from Thailand were apprehended on Sunday at the main international airport with an unprecedented haul of 242 pounds of potent cannabis, according to officials. A Customs spokesman revealed that the group, who had been on a four-day vacation in Bangkok, concealed about five kilos of the narcotic within false walls of their luggage.

This seizure marked the largest single detection of Kush at Sri Lanka’s primary international airport. The arrested monks were mostly young students from various temples across the country and were sponsored by a local businessman for their holiday. They are scheduled to appear before a magistrate later on Sunday.

Last May, a 21-year-old British woman was also detained with 101 pounds of cannabis at the same airport. She claimed she had no knowledge of the drugs in her luggage and that they were planted at her hotel in Bangkok when she traveled from there to Colombo for visa renewal.

In June 2025, customs authorities seized the largest haul of cocaine ever detected at the country’s main airport, with an unnamed 38-year-old Thai woman carrying about 22 pounds stuffed into three plush toys.

Sri Lankan officials have also made several large-scale detections of heroin and other narcotics smuggled in via small fishing boats in recent years.

The latest arrests are not the first time monks have faced drug law issues. In 2022, all monks at a Buddhist temple in central Thailand were defrocked after testing positive for methamphetamine. They were sent to a health clinic for rehabilitation.

In 2017, a monk was arrested in Myanmar with over 4 million meth pills found in his car and monastery.