Kathmandu, October 15

Benu Shrestha, an alleged member of a gold smuggling racket run by Chudamani Upreti aka Gorey, has been brought to Nepal from Dubai for prosecution.

He was arrested in Dubai in July.

Deputy Inspector General Shailesh Thapa Kshetri, Nepal Police spokesperson, told THT that he was brought home last night and was handed over to Morang District Court.

Shrestha had been kept in the custody of Dubai police for three months after it wrote to Nepal Police to provide necessary documents for verification and official processing. An Interpol Red Notice was issued for the arrest of four persons — Ramesh Upreti, Mohan Kumar Agrawal, Harisharan Khadka and Shrestha — on June 18. Earlier, Upreti, the younger brother of Gorey was arrested in Dubai, and Nepali Police is still in the process of bringing him home for prosecution.

Shrestha is among 75 persons charge-sheeted at the district court. However, some police officials, including SSP Dibesh Lohani, SP Bikash Raj Khanal and former DIG Govinda Niraula have already been released by Biratnagar High Court on general date, saying that there were not evidences to corroborate their involvement in gold smuggling.

The special probe committee formed by the Ministry of Home

Affairs to investigate the March 2 murder of Sanam Shakya and disappearance of 33 kilograms of smuggled gold had claimed that Shrestha, who is also a Kathmandu-based jeweller, had caused Shakya, his employee, to work as a carrier of smuggled gold under Gorey. The gang run by Gorey had electrocuted him in Morang for allegedly disappearing the 33 kg gold.

A MoHA source said Shrestha had also used Tekraj Malla for smuggling gold. Malla was sent to judicial remand by the court for his involvement in the murder and

smuggling gold. In a statement given to the court, Malla had implicated Gorey and Shrestha. Also operating illegal hundi business from Dubai, Shrestha used to smuggle gold into Nepal. However, the government is yet to find the whereabouts of the ‘lost’ gold.

According to the report of the probe committee submitted to the MoHA, the racketeers, in collusion with some police and customs officers, had smuggled around 3,800 kg gold from Dubai through Tribhuvan International Airport in 421 trips since 2015.