Ten people have contacted the Nepal police citing they were fleeced of Rs 51.9 million under the pretext of taking them to the United States and registering them as Bhutanese refugees. This came a week after when Nepal Police arrested absconding lawmaker Bahadur Rayamajhi from the outskirts of Kathmandu in a fake Bhutanese refugee scam.
The scam has sent shockwaves throughout the country, exposing a sophisticated network of corruption and deception involving political leaders.
So far 113 people have come in contact with the Nepal Police who have registered complaints identifying the cheaters claiming they have been cheated of more than Rs 50 million under this scam.
A report prepared by the District Police Range, Kathamandu, mentions that more than Rs 270 million of fraud has been committed by the people involved in this racket.
Initially, a complaint was lodged at the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office saying that Rs 130 million of fraud had been committed by 81 people. The office then handed over the file along with the arrested persons to District Police Range Kathmandu for further investigation and action.
Till date, the police have arrested 16 people involved with the scam and are investigating the case. The police started arresting the accused on March 26.
What is the Bhutanese Refugees Scam?
The Bhutanese Refugees Scam is a fraud scheme that lured over 800 people out of millions of rupees by giving them fictitious documents in the name of asylum seekers from Bhutan. These asylum seekers were qualified for resettlement in other countries. This complex plan was executed by a political-bureaucratic network with the help of several intermediaries.
This scandal is a blot on Nepal’s political and administrative structures which are already tainted by corruption. The former home secretary of Nepal, Tek Narayan Pandey has also been detained on allegations of accepting payments worth millions of rupees.
Nepal’s history of Bhutanese refugees
The tiny landlocked country in South Asia, Bhutan, has struggled for years with a refugee crisis. The government’s efforts to preserve Bhutanese culture led to the forcible eviction of thousands of Lhotshampas (individuals of Nepali heritage) from Bhutan in the late 1980s. These people applied for asylum in nearby nations, specifically Nepal, which took in the most Bhutanese refugees.
How the scam was unveiled?
The Bhutanese Refugees Scam was unveiled when more than 160 victims claimed that a network had cheated them of a substantial amount of money while promising to furnish them with fraudulent credentials identifying them as refugees from Bhutan. These people were promised by the con artists that they would be qualified for repatriation to other nations, including the USA.
Watch | Nepal’s former member of the Parliament arrested as fake Bhutanese refugee camp scam rocks
Soon after this, nationwide outrage followed the revelations that prominent political party officials had promised Nepali individuals false identities as Bhutanese refugees in exchange for millions of dollars.
Arrests till now under the scam
On May 10, former Home Minister and Nepali Congress politician Bal Krishna Khand were detained at his home in Nepal for his involvement in the trafficking of Nepali individuals as Bhutanese refugees overseas.
After this, the absconding lawmaker Top Bahadur Rayamajhi was also arrested after he tried to dodge the police for many weeks.
Niraj Rai, the son of Indrajit Rai, who worked as the security advisor to then-Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, has also been arrested as a suspect in the suspected trafficking operation.
Indrajit Rai, Thapa’s former security advisor, has already been arrested, as have former Home Secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, Sandeep Rayamajhi, Keshav Dulal, Sanu Bhandari, Tanka Gurung, Sandesh Sharma Pokhrel, and Sagar Thulung.
(With inputs from agencies)
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