The seven who were having a GoldQuest promotional scheme were arrested under the new anti-pyamiding provisions of the Banking Act, police in the town of Karandeniya in the southern provincial, Galle district said.

"We arrested them on a complaint from the Central Bank," Officer-in-Charge Kapila Kumara said.

This is the second time GoldQuest upliners have been arrested after the Central Bank brought in new anti-pyramiding laws to combat referral and network marketing schemes that operated as endless chains.

Last December, police in the North Central provincial town of Anuradhapura caught two GoldQuest upliners while they were conducting a seminar.

They were residents of suburb of Colombo.

After the furor surrounding GoldQuest's activities in Sri Lanka in 2004, and the subsequent collapse of the scheme, authorities say promoters have moved to remote areas where the scheme had attracted less attention.

The seven network marketers who were caught in Karandeniya were produced before the Balapitiya magistrate's court and remanded.

Some had just left school and were around 18 years of age. The oldest was 21 years old.

Sri Lanka's central bank brought in anti-pyramiding laws after the Goldquest scheme drained millions of dollars out of the country in 2003 and 2004.

At the time GoldQuest upliners were fined for violating Sri Lanka's exchange control laws.

Central Bank has now established a special investigation unit to look into pyramid scams, referral frauds, as well as other violations of laws administered by the regulator.

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