– A young woman who had stolen the ATM cards of a businessman at the instigation of her partner to spend for her honeymoon was arrested by the Athurugiriya police yesterday.Her partner was a mason who had been employed at construction sites of the businessman and well known to him. When the mason requested the businessman to provide accommodation for one night for his wife coming down to Colombo for an urgent matter, the latter had told him that he was living alone in the house and that he could provide accommodation to the young woman only if she was chaperoned by her mother.

The man had then accompanied the young woman and her mother to the businessman’s house and left them there after advising the young woman to steal the businessman’s bank ATM cards.The following day the two women had left the house taking away two ATM cards belonging to the businessman and met her partner. They had withdrawn Rs.50,000 first and registered their marriage and spent the honeymoon at a hotel in Wadduwa.The mason who had been under an arrest warrant had been arrested by thw Weligama Police when they were on their way to Weligama. He had allegedly been in possession of illegal drugs at the time of arrest, The woman who had proceeded to Matara after the arrest of her husband had withdrawn money with the ATM cards and purchased two mobile phones and jewelry .

Meanwhile the Athurugiriya police conducting investigations of the theft of ATM cards had examined the CCTV recordings at the banks, arrested the woman.Investigations revealed that the 26 year old suspect woman is a resident of Siribopura in Hambantota and mother of a child.

A police team under OIC Crime Investigation Branch SI Abhishek is conducting further investigations on the instructions of OIC Athurugiriya Police CI Narada Fernando.