According to new regulations, public officials who have dual citizenship and have property / assets overseas are not required to declare their assets. One can only imagine, who exactly benefits from this tailor-made regulation introduced during the Rajapaksa administration.
LankaWhistleBlower did some freelance investigations using publicly available information to uncover some information. Based on the information that we came up, the average market value of the primary residencies of Basil & Gotabaya Rajapakse are as follows:
Basil Rajapaksa
- Primary residence listed in Fontana, California
- 3 bedroom house
- Average market price - $4.5-million
Gotabaya Rajapakse
- Primary residence listed in San Dimas, California
- House is in the name of his wife, Ioma Rajapakse
- Average market price - $995,000 for an old house
Want to confirm the information yourself? Here's how. Read on.
- Visit Yahoo!People search -- http://people.yahoo.com
- Enter "First Name" Basil and "Last Name" Rajapaksa (spell correctly)
- Use the "Phone & Address Search"
- Copy the address to Google Maps or Google Earth to see the location
- To find the prices of houses in the surrounding area, type the ZIP code and "homes" into Google Search (note: NOT in Google Maps). This would be, "92336 homes" for Basil, for example.
- Click on the first link that Google returns "Find results for 92336 homes in Housing search"
- Confirm Ioma Rajapaksa is indeed Gotabaya's wife by typing her name into Google
- Then look her up on Yahoo People Search
Screenshots
- Basil Rajapaksa - Address , Closeup , Market Value
- Gotabaya Rajapksa - Address , Closeup , Market Value
All information disclosed here is obtained through publicly available information, free of charge. Anyone aware of the tools can do this. The only thing I've done is just compiled it.
After all, as the public we not only have to obey laws but understand the purpose of law. When things are done to circumvent not only law, but its purpose, then information such as this at least in my opinion, becomes worthwhile publishing.
29 comments:
basil rajapaksa's address can also be confirmed by running a 'White Pages' search from www.msn.com
This is a very unfair allegation.
Basil Rajapakse has proven that he gathered this wealth by Selling the Coconuts & Kurakkan grown behind "Medamulana Walawwa"-Hambanthota,his anscetral home.
The Rajapakse family has been wealthy for generations. Both houses have been bought way before Mahinda came into power. That outrules any corruption.
Gotabhaya has been fairly successful in business. The per capita income of US is about 50 times what it is in Sri Lanka. So a 4.5 million home in California is equivalent to having a US$100000 house in Sri Lanka. That won't even buy you a shack in Colombo 7.
I was at school with Mahinda's nephew and he had his own US$3000 movie projector at the age of 14.
These are not the prices of houses owned by the Rajapakses. Just because the price of a neighbouring mansion is 4.5 million dollars that doesn't mean Basil's house costs the same amount.
Website of Gotabaya Rajapaksa's son.
http://daminda23.googlepages.com/
"I was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka on December 16th, 1982. The only child of Gotabaya and Ioma Rajapaksa, I was given the name Daminda Manoj Rajapaksa. After spending my first years on this earth under the loving care of my grandmother Padma, I moved to the United States of America at the tender age of 11. Situated in Southern California, I attended Traweek Middle School and then later Covina High School. I was a proud member of the Marching Band, the Chess Club, the Asian Culture Club, and the Junior Varsity Tennis Team. After graduating as class valedictorian, I decided to attend Duke University in Durham, NC. At this point I lost my mind and became a hardcore Blue Devil. After college, I was able to find a job at Rocketdyne, a leading manufacturer of rocket engines and destructive weapons. That leads me up to today..."
"The Rajapakse family has been wealthy for generations. Both houses have been bought way before Mahinda came into power. That outrules any corruption."
"Gotabhaya has been fairly successful in business."
-yeah yeah..thats why Mahinda plundered the Tsunami aid of 80 Million.Basil Rajapakse was named Mr.10%,way before Mahinda became president.He is a known crook.
We all know how good good 'Businessmen' are they.
1.Robbed 80 Million Tsunami money
2.Gave Money to LTTE
3.MIG-27 deal is still unprobed.
If the Rajapakse & Bros are not guilty why fear to conduct a independent probe?????
(When they have all the time and money to spend on probes related to missiing spoons & forks+'unreturned' vehicles)
Rajapakse family is being cursed today by 20 million people,who live in Sri Lanka.
Anybody who knows about Fontana, California should know that an average house in the area is NOT even close to US$4.5 million (unless it's a ranch because that area is a remote area). Maximum house price could be 1 mil and average could be US$500,000. Go to a real estate agent and talk before barking.
This information IS based on what was available on Google real-estate listings. Take a look for yourself.
LankaWhistleBlower,
If you know about real estate, you cannot go by what Google "approximates" to a nearby house. Then if you go down the list they provide, you can find houses are for much less. You need to get the pricing for exact house. Man, in Fontana, CA, 3BD house would be around US$500,000, which is the basic average of a price in US. Once you finance it for 30 years, it's nothing,
1) These prices are not guesses by Google. They are in fact homes listed for sale.
2) I used the closest listing at the time I looked it up.
3) The issues is not merely how much the house costs. Rather, it is about NOT DICLOSING ASSETS in Sri Lanka as required.
If there's nothing to hide, then why hide?
hey, stupid
learn how to rea ur numbers right.
average house price in fontana is $400K to $500K... if u have ever been to fontana, u will no that there is no million dollar homes there... this house is in a crappy area... if u want to see million dollar houses go to rich areas in USA..like palo alto, san marino, beverly hills, hollywood...
plus the house has been bought in 2000 or 2001, when mahinda was not even prime minster...
so just shut up and lear how to read numbers... $400k means, $400,000 not 4.5 million.. don't just bark without knowing the facts..
I say again, take a look at this screen-cap:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8328284@N04/502931131/
I know Mahinda wasn't PM until fairly recently. But some of us are aware of what he did with the EPF funds & the salt-corporation, etc. Stay tuned for more of those in the future. The information WILL come out.
And I repeat what I said to the previous comment:
The issues is not merely how much the house costs. Rather, it is about NOT DICLOSING ASSETS in Sri Lanka as required.
If there's nothing to hide, then why hide?
check this out: the market value you compare to basil house is listed as:
6530 Douglas Avenue, Fontana, CA 92336
* Sold for $461,774 on Feb 26, 2007
* 3 br 2½ ba 1,726 sqft
*
* Lot size: 5552 sqft
* Last refreshed: <12 hrs ago
NOT for 4.5 million.. your flickr link is what u created with false data:
check this real listing:
http://www.trulia.com/homes/California/Fontana/sold/584048-6530-Douglas-Ave-Fontana-CA-92336
what kind of journalism do you practise?
I checked trulia, as well as a couple of other real-estate sites. There are listings for anywhere from $500,000 upwards, in the same neighbourhood. This could very well end up being just list prices in that case.
As I said at the outset, my screenshots / values are based on the sources that I used -- i.e, Google. If anyone feels that the figures I listed are fake, simply try the method that I detailed in the posting.
Also, keep in mind that the last time the house was sold does not neccessarily reflect current market prices (although the site refreshed 24hrs ago, doesn't mean that it's the true market value).
At any rate, this still doesn't explain why these guys are specifically exempted from declaring their assets, or does it?
OK...anon who said a $4.5million house is like a $100,000 house in SL doesnt know what he/she is talking about at all...at all
with regard to the Fontana house...It is highly unlikely that the house is $4.5 mill with only 3 bedrooms. If you check Remax there are million dollar houses but they have 5 bedrooms. The price of a house in the US is estimated by doing an appraisal with two-three comparables which have similar characteristics to the subject house.
Again its highly unlikely you would get a 3-bedroom house for that price unless your in areas like Pacific Palisades, San Francisco city, etc.
I like the idea of this blog but one must be able to admit mistakes.
Also I'm not sure why its such a big deal these two clowns have houses in the States, havent they lived and worked there? What should be more pertinent is asking how Mervyn de Silva has a Porsche Cayenne?
n,
Perhaps I was **mislead** by the figures on Google. But fact remains, those are in fact the numbers that are published for a collection of houses around that area, on Google.
The reason I decided to publish was because they circumvented the law that requires them to declare all their assets (SL & foreign) to Parliament. However, everyone seems to be so worked up with the exact value of the house.
Fontana, Daytona I don't give a rats ass. What the F*** is Mahinda and his brothers preaching??? that they live in mud huts thinking about the poor. They're filthy rich and they want to get richer. They wanna be known as the richest family to ever exist in Sri lanka.... All those who support this corrupt family should be hung!!
The term should be hanged, not hung. Pictures are hung, some men are unfortunately hanged.
What were the Goat & Basil upto in the US? The story we heard was that the Goat was a petrol pump attendant. Is this true and if so, why would he be doing something like that if he could afford a house like this?
I think US income tax law specifies that its citizens are taxed on their worldwide income, regardless of where they are resident. I sthis true? and if so what do the tax files say?
OK, so i was finally abe mto figure out how MR adds up 1 + 1 and gets 2.2
That was Basil's 10%. Wow! Math ain't so hard as people say?
http://oneplusoneceylon.blogspot.com
I don't want to back either Gotabhaya or Basil [also I don't quite agree on what was said on their properties], but I don't quite agree with the following comment found above,
"Robbed 80 Million Tsunami money"
Mahinda was never accused for robbing 80M - it was an issue regarding the procedure followed to start the bank account for Tsunami Hambantota Funds.
Ranil wanted to exploit this and called Mahinda as 'Tsunami Hora' - he too organized a march from Matara to Colombo targeting Tsunami victims just few months before the election. All his efforts were in vain. Mahinda won Southern Province with a lead more than 300,000 votes.
Just wanted to say... this is a great blog! SL ppl, at least Sinhalese, need to stop being so passive about the corruption in the government.
To the guy who mentioned MR didn't steal 80 mill, why then did he block the investigation with the aid of Sarath Silva?
As for this story about MR's brother knowning a $4.5 mill estate, it may or may not be true... what is clear is that based on past precedent, these crooks who assume the presidency have a LOT of illegal assets, which of course include overseas property. Let's not forget CBK's Sunninghill Mansion. How ministers themselves manage to send their children overseas for studies on a 100,000 rupee a month salary - well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out how. There is a reason why the war has dragged on for 26+ years, and that reason begins and ends with corruption.
People,
First you need to use a credible site to get prices of homes in the US. What google gives you is a site on internet, which could be or not be credible. A very known site for real estate is www.zillow.com.
Now the $4.5 million house you talking about was "recently" sold for $461,774, which is an average house price in fontana, ca - http://www.zillow.com/search/Search.htm?addrstrthood=6530+douglas+ave&citystatezip=fontana%2C+ca&GOButton=
Some thoughts that went thru my mind as I read these comments were as follows;
Where did these frenzied attempts come up from to highlight corruption of the Rajapakse's, when we never had such intense levels of interest in looking for it before in other politicians?
Where were all these 'concerned people' when things were far worse in the past coupld of decades under many different governments?
Isn't it wonderful that we have a set up where you really can critisize the President's own family openly?
Where the hell were these loud guys , when it wasn't so?
Somebody tell me..
I'll tell you why. This is the first time where a president has started appointing his siblings to all important positions in the country. Makes me think whether Sri Lanka is still a republic, or a monarchy.
Secondly, in case you've been living in a cave for the last 20 years, there's a been a big revolution on how information is gathered & published. People like me, with access to the internet, and using freely available resources can lookup public information and publish stuff for the entire world to read if they care.
So stop whining about the past and trying to suck up to the Rajapaksas. No matter how much you keep whining about the past, nothing can be done to change it. The only thing that can be shaped is the future.
Great news guys. I talked with Mr. Basil Rajapaksa today. He is willing to sell his '$4.5 million' house for only $ 550,000. Anyone wants to buy? By the way, he got his house before his brother became the president. Check www.zillow.com
Its amazing that us Sri Lankans are overzealous to critize each other without even looking at the matter at hand!! Perhaps that is why we find ourselves in the pickle we are...
I agree, Whistleblower, it appears that the house prices are not correct- but I think that's already covered.
But more importantly, what's interesting is that everyone chooses to ignore the fact of declaring assets as a politician. People are so intent on defending the people they put into power, that they don't want to see what is the key issue here.... i.e. assets outside the country should be declared by ANYONE in public office. It appears that us Sri Lankan's cant even spell "trsnprnci".
Secondly, if the US IRS finds out that these guys (who are US citizens) are feathering bank accounts in Singapore I am sure they would have a lot to say...
oh...and... the Tsunami thing- just a genuine mistake?!! - "Here let me open a personal bank account with Standard Chartered and give it any old charitable name I please - wait how about HELP HAMBANTOTA"... PLEASE people get a clue!
Whsitleblower- good job on creating the blog. The cretins who critisize you for your initiative are probably scared that their names are going to show up in lights here too...
Just be sure to cross check your info as we Sri Lankan's love to focus on the minute detail and to hell with the big picture!
I think Gotabaya Rajapakse and Basil Rajapakse are doing a great job by assisting our president the Hon Mahinda Rajapakse. He cannot be in better hands. The economy is flourishing under his prudent leadership and Sri Lanka has a bright future. I suggest Mr Gotabaya or Basil be elected as the successor to Mahinda Rajapakse to carry on his ground braking achievements unabated.
Looks like these crooks will enjoy the rest of their lives at the expense of 20 mil lankans.
At least lets wish they suffer in their next lives.
"Hell cannot be in better hands"
well said.
may the brothers be elected to continue, breaking up this tiny island into a living hell
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