Praminda Sirimanna: the greatest crook I found in my life.

It all started meeting Praminda in his notorious restaurant 'TUNA TUNA' in Kalpitiya on February 2019.
The fellow was very amicable and we had a lot of conversations about kitesurfing and cuisine (since supposedly they were two common passions).

After few days, since I explained I was a kite instructor and I have good connections with the best professionals of the field , Praminda mentioned he was involved with a big businessman from Colombo in a new venture and they would have needed professional kite instructors for their venue, which would have had a lot of sport activities.

I left Kalpitiya few days after to continue my tour of Sri Lanka, but Praminda insisted I would visit his house in Bentota after few days. There I would have had the occasion to see a real Buddhist ceremony for the commemoration of his mother's death. He really likes to paint himself like as a fervent believer and a highly educated person. We attended the big ceremony with all the monks and that amazing holy atmosphere.

Briefly after we met in Colombo with his partner, a very professional and respectable businessman of Colombo and we agreed to do business together.

Safe to say the ideas and proposal of Praminda were mesmerizing: he was talking of high standard services, western style hospitality' - which according to him was a big lack in Sri Lanka -, the need of real professionals to work with them such as we could have been and the best hospitality project there would have been on the market of Kaplitiya. No doubt me and the other businessman became enthusiast of the project.

Month passed refining contracts and agreements, until we came to October 2019.

We were ready to start for the end of the year, but strangely Praminda (who was in charge of the construction and the future management of the resort) 'pressed' me to go back in Kalpitiya by the mid of November and to equip the school by then. Timeframe became suddenly short and the original plan to bring the kite school materials from our usual provider became unpractical: we could have had the whole equipment not before than the end of December.

Praminda offered a solution: he granted for a local kite brand HK Kites, assuring the products were very good and they were very reliable providers. He even mentioned the founder was a former North Kiteboarding designer, who got independent as producer. He personally guaranteed the quality and reliability of the provider, so we got convinced to follow his advice.

Eli Leymontas (supposedly the owner of the HK kites) contacted me with the total amount of the equipment we bought was 6.810 Eu. It was asked to pay the 50% at the order and the remaining 50% on the delivery.

We agreed and I wire transferred the 50% advanced payment.

Few days before I would arrive in Kalpitiya for the start of the season, I got another email from Eli with the request if I could pay the remaining 50% to speed up the import process at the customs for the boards and bars, while kites were already in the company's storage in Negombo, ready to be picked up.
At the same moment I got the confirmation via email from Praminda he was going to pick the kites the next day.

So we sent the remaining 50% of the payment.

Few days later I arrived to Kalpitiya and I had few surprises:

1. Praminda didn't pick up the kites yet, because supposedly he was very busy with the construction of the resort;

2. The resort, which was promised to be ready to start the season was basically a building site and nothing was finished, no room was ready for any guest;

3. The promised accommodations for the upcoming 3 instructors were nonexistent.

The explanation of Praminda of the situation was that they have been delayed by the heavy rains, but from the 21^st of November to the opening of the 15^th of December they would have been ready.

Suffice to say the resort was not ready by the 15^th of February.

Email from Eli when I arrived in Sri Lanka:

In the meanwhile, I asked Praminda to go and retrieve the kites and the boards, but I kept receiving emails from Eli that the boards and bars were not ready because not cleared by the customs due to the recent change of administration in the government and some re-settles.

The story went long, until my last day of stay, with Eli keeping saying no custom clearance was done yet, when me and Praminda to visit the seller�s venue on my way to the airport.

These Are all the emails from Eli before then:

With my great surprise waking up in the morning agreed to go to Eli's factory, Praminda was gone. He sent me a message he left before to go and sort out the kite issue by himself because he was feeling guilty and he would have been back in time to take me to the airport. After that message his phone was dead.

Hour passed and at one point I faced myself in need to take a taxy for the airport, to avoid missing the flight. I caught my flight by miracle being very late in Colombo airport.

So I left after 1 month, without seeing the kites and the boards me and my partner purchased. Behind me I left the three instructors we paid and brought to Sri Lanka, following the agreement with Praminda, for the kite season: yet no school material was available.

January passed without the equipment to appear and a lot of excuses from Eli on the further and further delay in delivery. The resort construction in the meanwhile was going very slow and we had to recall two of the three instructors due to the lack of work and the unacceptable accommodation (basically Praminda didn't provide anything for them as before agreed).

When my partner in the kite school showed up at the end of January only two rooms were ready.
The third partner (the investor from Colombo) visited also and was not believing his eyes, since after paying in front most of the construction to Praminda, which was managing the whole process, nothing was basically going on as planned.

My partner was staying there for few days and 5 days before leaving he agreed with Eli to meet and get back the money we paid by cash, going to withdraw the money the same day.
Regardless the agreement, I received an email from Eli the same day, with the copy of the confirmation of the payment back via wire transfer and at that point Praminda said there was no need to visit this Eli.

A few days later my partner left Sri Lanka, just after we found out the invoice was a fake and no money came back from this 'ELI', which we never meet and never ever see in face or talked to by phone.

The false receipt pf transfer:

If enlarged it can clearly show it is a fake, the invoice number was added, enough to see the difference of resolution between the ivoice number and the rest which is blurier:

We made a research and we found an Eli, but he never had to do anything with our purchase.

In the meanwhile, Praminda called the Colombo investor saying he had a big fight with me and my partner, before he left, because he presented some sort of bill to my partner for some resort service and he refused to pay. After that according to Praminda I would have called him blasting and blaming him for the bill.

The Colombo investor, as a reasonable person, called me and asked for explanation. Of course, I knew nothing of it, because the bill was never given and I had no contacts with Praminda from before my partner left Sri Lanka. We immediately understood Praminda created that lie to split us and make us fight and seize our reciprocal communication.

The investor the same evening of our conversation rushed to his resort property in Kalpitiya.

When he arrived, he found no one taking care of the property, no person was there, especially Praminda, who was supposedly the manager. Once again, the construction had no continuation especially the details to be finished that same week, which he paid in advance to Praminda and which should have been completed by then.

The Colombo Business man had a doubt and went to see at TUNA TUNA, the former Praminda�s restaurant.

With surprise he found a full functioning restaurant, newly restyled, with much nicer furniture than he could remember. On his page Praminda posted about the 'new look' of the restaurant.

Interestingly during 'his work at the resort, Praminda agreed not to be paid since he would have participated to the dividends of the future business. He kept repeating me he was broke. I wonder where he found the money for the grand restyling.

Here's the publication on the restaurant page in those days.

Long Story short, Praminda created all the situation and took our money.

At that point since we found that, he promised to give the money back.

A lot of messages from him followed, but no money so far.

Last message for now was a voice message granting the money back on the 12^th of March. Since then no more.

This person is a real CROOK, I prepared this website to let everybody know what he does and what scams he can perpetrate. Keep in mind this and stay far from him and absolutely don�t trust him for any business.

I came to know we are not the first case of scammed people and I am trying to get in contact to the persons he already fooled to collect evidence and means to have this person jailed for good.

If anyone wants any evidence of the facts above, he can write to me here and I will provide all the documentation in original.