Nepal police charge 32 in Everest ‘insurance scam’ where guides ‘fed adventurers baking soda’
Once struck down by induced sickness, trekkers were forced to agree to costly emergency helicopter evacuations
Police in Nepal have filed organised crime and fraud charges against 32 individuals as part of a long-running investigation into a $20 million insurance scam.
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The case implicates a wide network of tourism figures, including trekking company owners, helicopter operators and hospital executives.
Nine suspects appeared at Kathmandu District Court on Sunday, while 23 others remain on the run.
Investigators say trekking agencies deliberately made clients sick by lacing their food with baking soda, causing severe gastrointestinal distress that mimicked altitude sickness or food poisoning.
Once incapacitated, trekkers were allegedly pressured into agreeing to costly emergency helicopter evacuations.
The operators then used forged medical and flight documents to bill international travel insurers for the extortionate cost of the supposed emergencies.
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The illicit profits were then split among guides, helicopter companies, trekking agencies and the hospitals where the tourists were supposedly treated.
In January, authorities arrested six executives from three prominent mountain rescue firms.
Police records allege the groups fraudulently obtained at least $19.69 million in insurance payouts.
One company is accused of faking 171 of its 1,248 claimed rescues, leading to more than $10 million (£7.3 million) in unjustified payouts.
A second company allegedly fabricated 75 of 471 claimed rescues and fraudulently claimed $8 million (£5.8 million), while a third is accused of making 71 false claims worth more than $1 million (£741,000).
Prosecutors are seeking total fines of 1.51 billion Nepalese rupees (about $11.3 million) from the accused.
A court spokesperson said: “The court is [...] giving high priority to this high-profile corruption case.”
Nepal's tourist industry is no stranger to large-scale insurance fraud. Previous revelations have badly tarnished Nepal’s image as a tourist destination.
In recent years, several major international insurers halted coverage for tourists trekking in Nepal due to the escalating incidences of fraud.
In 2018, the government claimed it had eliminated all “intermediaries” involved in arranging emergency evacuation services for trekkers, making operators legally responsible for their clients from the start to the end of a trip.
Under the revised arrangement, helicopter companies, travel and tour operators, hospitals and insurance firms were required to submit details of rescue flights, medical treatment and insurance bills to the Tourist Search and Rescue Committee, the Tourist Police and the Department of Tourism.
However, eight years later the problem has evidently worsened and old investigative files have been re-opened.
“The scam continued due to lax punitive action,” said Manoj Kumar KC, chief of the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), the police’s specialised unit for organised crime.
“When there is no action against crime, it flourishes. The insurance scam too flourished as a result."
Meanwhile, Nepal is making attempts to boost its tourist climbing sector – making 97 of its Himalayan mountains free to climb for the next two years.