Kathmandu, November 21

Police have busted a forgery racket involving eight persons and seized a huge cache of fake government seals.

The suspects nabbed by Metropolitan Police Crime Division from different places of Kathmandu over a period of two days are Rudra Bahadur Moktam, 25, of Sindhuli; Bhuwani Prasad Bhattarai, 38, of Taplejung; Bushal Jung Shahi, 26, and Suresh Bahadur Shahi, 24, of Kalikot; Abhay Pokhrel, 32, of Sunsari; Devraj Tamang, 30, of Kavre; and Anil Shrestha, 33, and Santosh Kumar Tiwari, 37, of Kathmandu.

According to MPCD, they produced and sold migration and provisional certificates of Plus Two level and transcripts of National Examination Board. They especially targeted persons who won DV lottery but had not passed Plus Two level.

Devraj collected Rs 350,000 from Rudra Bahadur promising him certificate of Plus Two level as the latter won DV lottery for 2017 but did not have the certificate required for visa processing. “Devraj contacted Anil, an employee at Kathmandu-based Secured Life Consultancy, and gave him Rs 45,000 to produce a fake certificate,” SSP Dibesh Lohani, MPCD in-charge said. Eventually, Anil provided Bishal, operator of Satya Binayak Communications, with Rs 30,000 for the purpose.

Bishal, in turn, gave Suresh Rs 12,000 to procure a forged certificate. “Krishna Achhami (who is still at large) counterfeited the Plus Two level certificate for Rudra Bahadur through Suresh and got Rs 55,000,” he informed.

In another instance, Santosh provided Bhuwani Prasad with a Plus Two level certificate for

Rs 90,000. Bhuwani had won American DV for 2018 and did not have the certificate to be eligible for the lottery. Abhay, who helped Santosh produce the fake certificate for Bhuwani was arrested in 2014 on forgery charge and is now serving his time in jail, according to police. They were found using forged seals and holograms of government offices and signatures of officials. Acting on a tip-off, a special police team was deployed from MPCD to carry out raids in various places of Kathmandu and nab the suspects.

They had maintained a coordination system for functioning in which some were assigned to find potential clients while some actually forged seals and signatures. Police have seized from them dozens of forged papers, certificates and equipment used in the process.

Police said they would be charged with forging government seal and signature forgery. MPCD has handed over them to Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu, for further investigation.