Nepal travel executives arrested for scamming millions with fake mountain rescues

Prayer flags fly at the Manaslu base camp, part of the Great Himalaya Trail route, in Nepal on Oct. 18, 2011. (Nepal / Samir Thapa)

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Authorities in Nepal have arrested six travel and mountain rescue executives accused of conducting fake rescues on the Himalayan nation’s high mountains to scam millions of dollars from international insurance companies, officials said Monday.

Nepal’s Central Investigation Bureau arrested six people from three different travel and mountain rescue operators last week, accusing them of submitting fake claims for close to US$20 million between 2022 and 2025 and receiving the money in their accounts. All six are Nepali nationals.

Bureau spokesperson Shiva Kumar Shrestha said Monday that authorities are still investigating.

Fake documents including passenger and cargo manifests for helicopter rescue flights, medical invoices and hospital reports were sent to insurance companies, the bureau said.

The agency said that one of the companies that 171 of the 1,248 rescues claimed by one company were fake, leading to unjustified payouts of more than $10 million. Another is accused of fabricating 75 of 471 claimed rescues and fraudulently claiming $8 million, while the last one is accused of making 71 fake claims with payouts totaling over $1 million.

Thousands of climbers come to Nepal every year to scale the highest Himalayan mountains, while tens of thousands more also come to hike the mountain trails leading up to the base camps of these high peaks.

Every year several climbers die and hundreds are rescued suffering from extreme exhaustion, altitude sickness or other medical issues.

There are few roads and limited medical facilities in the mountains, so rescuers are often forced to charter expensive helicopter flights to transport patients to hospitals in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.

High altitude climbers are required to show proof of insurance covering helicopter rescue before they are issued climbing permits.

Binaj Gurubacharya, The Associated Press