Kathmandu, October 29

The Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police has arrested two persons for allegedly operating a bitcoin racket in Kathmandu and Pokhara under the cloak of online technology business.

According to CIB, Ram Dhakal, 32, and Purusottam Dhar Tuladhar, 26, were held from Pokhara and Kathmandu respectively on October 26. SP Jeevan Shrestha, CIB spokesperson, said they were allegedly running cryptocurrency racket under the name of Bitsewa Pvt Ltd. Dhakal of Pokhara was chairperson and Tuladhar of Kathmandu was executive director of Bitsewa Pvt Ltd.

“They registered a company in the name of Bitsewa Pvt Ltd on the pretext of running business of online technology, information dissemination and software development,” he informed. They had also opened www.bitsewa.com calling it ‘Bitsewa: Nepal’s First Bitcoin Company and Digital Assets Exchange’.

SP Shrestha informed that the duo were also luring people through the company’s Facebook Page. According to CIB, Bitcoin, also called digital currency, is the first decentralised peer-to-peer payment network that is powered by its users with no central authority or middlemen. Though it is legal in some countries and over 1,100 cryptocurrenies are in practice, its trading is punishable under the Nepal Rastra Bank Act.

Cryptocurrency is a global digital payment system. The central bank has already imposed a ban on the transaction of bitcoin and gravity coin in Nepal. Cryptocurrencies can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services.

Unlike traditional currencies such as dollars, bitcoins are issued and managed without any central authority whatsoever and there is no government, company or bank in charge of bitcoin. Earlier, CIB had arrested nine suspects in two separate operations for running bitcoin racket.