Anti-narcotics agents from the United States and Sri Lanka seized almost half a tonne of crystal methamphetamine following a joint operation targeting a Pakistani drug network, police said on Wednesday.

Some 463 kilos of the synthetic drug were seized from a shipping container that arrived in Colombo over the weekend and two Pakistani men were arrested, police deputy inspector-general Ashoka Dharmasena told reporters.

The US embassy in Colombo said the narcotics, valued at $21 million and concealed in bath towels, were meant to be smuggled to international markets via Sri Lanka.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration’s office and Sri Lanka Police Narcotics Bureau conducted the joint operation, the embassy said in a statement, after tracking shipping containers from Pakistan between August 14-29.

“This operation underscores the strength of the US-Sri Lanka partnership in dismantling transnational criminal organisations that fund terrorism and threaten communities in both our countries,” it said.

Dharmasena said they had also arrested a local man in connection with the latest methamphetamine seizure and confirmed the operation followed a “tip-off”.

Sri Lanka’s ongoing anti-narcotics drive since October has resulted in the seizure of nearly 14 tonnes of illegal drugs, he added.

The haul includes methamphetamine, also known as ice, heroin and cocaine.

Sri Lanka’s Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told parliament that most of the illegal drugs originated in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and were being smuggled into the island by sea.

He said there were an estimated 400,000 drug users in the island nation of 22 million people.

In October 2024, a Sri Lankan court sentenced 10 Iranian men to life imprisonment after they pleaded guilty to heroin smuggling.

Sri Lanka’s largest single seizure of narcotics was in December 2016, when customs officials found 800 kilos of cocaine in a shipping container of timber destined for India.