Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Sunday refuted allegations that he and his family were maintaining illegal or secret offshore bank accounts, adding that if he had such accounts their details would have been revealed by now.

Releasing a media statement, Rajapaksa said that “prominent members of the government have been spreading rumours about billions of Dollars stashed abroad in secret offshore accounts by me, my wife and sons.”

Rajapaksa further stated that his political opponents keep on refreshing these allegations from time to time “through strategically placed media reports about American and Indian financial intelligence bodies joining in the search and special teams being sent to the Seychelles to look for the hidden money.”

He pointed out that the Cabinet Spokesman recently told Reuters that “a member of a ‘leading family’ had $1064 million in a secret account in Dubai.”

Rajapaksa added that in this era of heightened surveillance due to concerns over money laundering and terrorist funding, accounts with millions of Dollars cannot be operated without attracting the attention of international regulatory authorities. If any such accounts existed, it is certainly not going to take this long to reveal their details, he further stated.

These were allegations made by the same people that said he had brought horses from ‘Buckingham Palace in America’ Rajapaksa said in his statement.