COLOMBO: Sri Lanka on Friday arrested 18 people suspected of trying to leave the country illegally for New Zealand, a navy spokesman said. A joint team of navy and police officers took the men into custody during a pre-dawn operation outside Colombo as they tried to board a fishing trawler, spokesman Chaminda Walakuluge said. Sri Lankans have sought asylum in New Zealand in the past, most of them members of the island’s Tamil minority who say they are fleeing persecution at home. “The information we have is that they were trying to go to New Zealand,” Walakuluge told AFP. “We handed the men to the police for further action while we look for the people smugglers involved.” It was the largest arrest of would-be migrants in Sri Lanka since the navy stopped 54 people from leaving the island in a fishing trawler in May 2014. Later that same year, 37 people were arrested outside Sri Lankan waters after being turned back by Australia’s coastguard.Breaking the immigration law carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail.