{"id":18354,"date":"2026-04-02T19:20:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/nepal-charges-32-over-fake-helicopter-rescues-in-us19-7m-trekking-insurance-scam\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:20:14","slug":"nepal-charges-32-over-fake-helicopter-rescues-in-us19-7m-trekking-insurance-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/nepal-charges-32-over-fake-helicopter-rescues-in-us19-7m-trekking-insurance-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Nepal charges 32 over fake helicopter rescues in US$19.7m trekking insurance scam"},"content":{"rendered":"
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KATHMANDU, April 2 — Nepal has charged 32 people over a multi-million-dollar insurance scam involving fake helicopter rescues of trekkers, police said today, a long-running racket that has cast a shadow over the country’s vital tourism industry.<\/p>\n

The Himalayan nation attracts thousands of trekkers each year, many walking remote high-altitude trails where emergency airlifts are common and often costly.<\/p>\n

But investigators say some operators have for years orchestrated fraudulent evacuations to cash in on insurance payouts.<\/p>\n

Police say they uncovered cases in which multiple insurance claims were filed for a single rescue, chartered flights were falsely billed as emergency evacuations and private hospitals issued inflated or fabricated medical invoices.<\/p>\n

“Court proceedings are underway. Charges have been filed against 32 people. So far 10 people have been arrested,” Manoj Kumar KC, chief of Nepal’s Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), told AFP.<\/p>\n

The companies involved allegedly defrauded insurers of at least US$19.69 million, with cuts distributed at different levels, the police had said in January, when the first arrests were made.<\/p>\n

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Those named in the chargesheet, seen by AFP, include people in trekking agencies, helicopter firms and hospitals allegedly linked to the racket.<\/p>\n

Investigators said guides sometimes sickened travellers—including by mixing baking soda into their food or serving contaminated meals—to justify helicopter evacuations.<\/p>\n

Trekkers were also pressured into airlifts even for minor illnesses, according to the chargesheet.<\/p>\n

Six suspects were first detained in January.<\/p>\n

The arrests came after nearly three months of inquiries by the CIB that they said uncovered a trail of forged documents and manipulated records.<\/p>\n

A 2018 government probe identified 15 companies involved in similar scams, but no action was taken, allowing them to persist despite new guidelines introduced after warnings from insurers. — AFP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nepal charges 32 over fake helicopter rescues in US$19.7m trekking insurance scam<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KATHMANDU, April 2 — Nepal has charged 32 people over a multi-million-dollar insurance scam involving fake helicopter rescues of trekkers, police said today, a long-running racket that has cast a shadow over the country’s vital tourism industry. The Himalayan nation attracts thousands of trekkers each year, many walking remote high-altitude trails where emergency airlifts are…<\/p>\n

Read More “Nepal charges 32 over fake helicopter rescues in US$19.7m trekking insurance scam”<\/span> »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18355,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}