The authorities in Nepal have arrested six people in a crackdown on an elaborate helicopter rescue scam in which mountain rescue companies carried out hundreds of unnecessary evacuations of climbers from Mount Everest and other peaks to bilk insurance companies out of millions of dollars.
Six officials from three mountain rescue agencies were arrested on Jan. 25 for defrauding international insurance companies between 2022 and 2025, the culmination of a four-month investigation, the police in Nepal said.
The rescue agencies, based in Kathmandu, carried out about 300 helicopter evacuations of climbers after pushing foreign tourists to seek emergency mountainside rescues for minor illnesses when simpler treatments were available, investigators from Nepal’s Central Investigation Bureau said.
By falsifying passenger manifests and medical reports in collusion with private hospitals in Kathmandu, the firms — Mountain Rescue, Everest Experience and Assistance, and Nepal Charter Service — extracted nearly $20 million in payouts from international insurance companies for rescues that were unnecessary or entirely fabricated, the authorities said.
In one instance, the Nepali authorities said in a statement, a mountain rescue agency billed insurance companies for the cost of four separate helicopter rescues after an operation that rescued four climbers on a single helicopter.
The individuals who were arrested, all of whom are Nepali nationals, are managers and senior officials at the three rescue agencies. The authorities are determining potential charges, including offenses relating to fraud as well as tarnishing Nepal’s national image in a way that could negatively impact tourism and the mountaineering sector.
Shiva Kumar Shrestha, a senior officer at the Central Investigation Bureau, said investigators were looking into whether more companies were involved. He declined to provide the names of the international insurance companies that the authorities believe were defrauded or the names of the private hospitals in Kathmandu that are under investigation.
“When there is no action against crime, it flourishes,” Manoj Kumar KC, the chief of Nepal’s Central Investigation Bureau, told The Kathmandu Post. “The insurance scam, too, flourished as a result.”
Representatives from Mountain Rescue, Everest Experience and Assistance, and Nepal Charter Service did not respond to requests for comment.
Nepal has sought to clamp down on insurance fraud in the climbing industry before. In 2018, investigations by the Nepali government and a medical assistance company based in Ireland found that some trek operators, guides and helicopter companies — and even doctors and hospitals — had conspired to defraud insurance companies.
In that investigation, the Nepali government found evidence that some guides went as far as spiking the food of hikers with large amounts of baking soda, which can cause vomiting, diarrhea and other ailments, and then calling for an emergency helicopter evacuation.
Jenny Gross is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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