22 Buddhist monks arrested at airport after record drug bust

Twenty-two Sri Lankan monks returning from Thailand were arrested on Sunday at the main international airport with a record 242 pounds of powerful cannabis, officials said.

A Sri Lanka Customs spokesman said the group, returning home after a four-day vacation in the Thai capital, had Kush — a potent strain of cannabis — hidden in their luggage.

“Each carried about five kilos of the narcotic concealed within false walls in their luggage,” the spokesman said, adding that the monks had been handed over to police.

They were to be taken before a magistrate later on Sunday.

The monks were mostly young students from temples across Sri Lanka and had been on a holiday sponsored by a businessman.

Customs officials said it was the largest single detection of Kush at the South Asian country’s main international airport.

Last May, a 21-year-old British woman was arrested with 101 pounds of the drug at the same airport. The woman, identified as Charlotte May Lee, said she had traveled from Bangkok to Colombo to renew her Thai visa. The BBC reported that she denied knowledge of drugs in her luggage, and claimed they were planted at her hotel in Bangkok.

In June 2025, Sri Lanka’s customs authorities arrested a woman and seized the largest haul of cocaine ever detected at the country’s main airport. Officials said the unnamed 38-year-old Thai woman was carrying about 22 pounds of cocaine stuffed into three plush toys.

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

The latest arrests aren’t the first time monks have run afoul of drug laws.

In 2022, every single monk at a Buddhist temple in central Thailand was defrocked after they tested positive for methamphetamine. The monks were sent to a health clinic to undergo drug rehabilitation.

In 2017, police said a Buddhist monk was arrested in Myanmar after authorities found more than 4 million meth pills in his car and in his monastery.

The latest arrests aren’t the first time monks have run afoul of drug laws.