140 arrested in police raids over 3 days
The police have arrested 109 men and 31 women over three days for various offences.
In the first operation from Tuesday to Wednesday, officers from the Criminal Investigation Department and the six police divisions conducted raids islandwide.
A total of 37 men and six women were arrested for rioting, outraging of modesty, cheating, criminal breach of trust, theft, and drug-related offences.
In a three-day operation that ended on Wednesday, 72 men and 25 women were held over alleged loan-sharking activities.
Investigations revealed that 13 of them are believed to be runners who carried out automated teller machine (ATM) transfers and collected debts.
Three are believed to have splashed paint and scrawled loan shark-related graffiti on walls.
The remaining 81 are believed to have opened bank accounts and given their ATM cards and personal identification numbers to loan sharks to facilitate their unlicensed moneylending.
Under the law, when a bank account or ATM card of any person is used to facilitate moneylending by an unlicensed moneylender, that person is presumed to have assisted in the carrying on the business of unlicensed moneylending.
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