On Monday, the Kaski District Police Office filed a complaint with the Kaski District Attorney’s Office, requesting that 51 individuals, including Rabi Lamichhane, the president of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), be charged with embezzling cooperative funds.
The District Attorney’s Office received a 650-page report from the Kaski District Police Office detailing the results of their two-month investigation.
According to Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Basanta Kumar Sharma, the spokesperson for Kaski Police, the report was delivered to the lawyer’s office on Monday.
According to the chargesheet, the police have calculated that the guilty must pay up to Rs1.514 billion. The police have suggested that they be charged with money laundering, joint fraud, and organized crime. DSP Sharma claims that 37 of the 51 defendants are currently at large.
On the charge of embezzling money from the Karki-based Suryadarshan Cooperative, the police have recommended that the government lawyer submit a supplemental chargesheet in court against 51 individuals, including former home minister Lamichhane. Lamichhane and his business associates GB Rai, Chhabi Lal Banjade Joshi, and Kumar Ramtel have also been charged with organized crime in the police report.
Joshi was taken into custody from Kathmandu on September 22, while Lamichhane was arrested on November 18. Both of them have been under the custody of Kaski Police ever since.
Police have recommended filing a supplemental chargesheet in court against 51 of the 65 individuals, including Lamichhane, according to DSP Sharma. “The district police have not yet determined the precise address of fourteen individuals.”
The police have recommended that Lamichhane be charged with money laundering in connection with his suspected involvement in illicit and suspicious transactions totaling more than Rs210 million.
The government prosecutors will prepare a chargesheet and submit it to the court after reviewing the police report.
According to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, authorities may detain suspects for up to 90 days, 60 days for organized crime, and 25 days for cooperative fraud investigations.
On September 22, former DIG Chhabilal Joshi was transported to Kaski for an inquiry into the cooperative fraud case after being arrested in Kathmandu.
They will finish their 90 days in detention on December 20 with effect from the day of Joshi’s arrest because Lamichhane and Joshi’s investigations are similar. Therefore, the prosecutors must file a case by December 20.
They were also escorted to Rupandehi, Kathmandu, Chitwan, and Parsa districts for a probe into Lamichhane and Joshi’s alleged involvement in the misappropriation of deposits from several cooperatives situated in those areas. Lamichhane and Joshi were partners in Gorkha Media Network, which operated the now-defunct Galaxy 4k TV.
Lamichhane, Joshi, and GB Rai, the media business’s chairman, are charged of transferring over Rs690 million to the media company from other cooperatives. They were accused of embezzling deposits from the Supreme Cooperative in Butwal, the Sahara Cooperative in Bharatpur, the Sanopaila Cooperative in Parsa, the Swarnalaxmi Cooperative in Kathmandu, and the Suryadarshan Cooperative in Kaski.
According to the police report, they fraudulently transferred around Rs680 million from these five cooperatives to Gorkha Media Network, committing organized fraud.
The police report is being examined, according to the district officials at the Kaski attorney’s office.
Kamala Kafle, the district attorney for Kaski, stated that two more charge sheets might be submitted in the case.
“Since more cooperative depositors have complained, we will submit supplemental chargesheets against the recently arrested defendants and file additional charges against the defendants who have already been charged,” Kafle stated.
Since they don’t have much time to examine the police report that was turned in on Monday, Kafle noted, it would be hard to press charges on Tuesday.
Monday marks the end of the most recent prolongation for Lamichhane’s detention to custody. Lamichhane will be taken to court by the police on Tuesday to ask for an extension.
Kafle stated, “The investigation report is still being reviewed.” “We will ask for another extension on Tuesday because it will take some time to figure out which charges will apply.”
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