Nepal Jails Former Ministers in Bhutanese Refugee Fraud Case

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KATHMANDU: A Kathmandu district court has jailed two former government ministers and fourteen others for running a fraudulent Bhutanese refugee scam. Former Deputy Prime Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi received a four year sentence, while former Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand was also jailed for two years.

The defendants were convicted of forging official documents to illegally resettle ordinary Nepali citizens abroad in the United States and Europe. This lucrative corruption racket specifically targeted desperate individuals who missed out on an official third country resettlement program that concluded in 2018.

Senior officials exploited these victims by promising to pass them off as displaced refugees in exchange for large sums of money. Historically, more than 100,000 ethnic Nepalis had fled Bhutan in the early 1990s following a shift in nationality laws.

The high profile case exposed deep systemic corruption, triggering massive youth led anti graft protests that ultimately caused a government collapse.

Former Home Secretary Tek Narayan Pandey also received four years, though the convicted politicians deny wrongdoing and plan further legal appeals.