KATHMANDU: Police have arrested an education consultancy operator who cheated students of millions of rupees and left them in a lurch.

Sujan Neupane, 26, of Bharatpur, Chitwan was arrested from Keshar Mahal, based on intelligence inputs.

According to the Metropolitan Police Crime Division, Neupane was arrested on charge of fraud after he sent many students to Saint Lucia through his Bharatpur-based Visa Abroad Education Consultancy with false assurances of their transfer to US universities. Neupane had collected 1.2 million rupees each from 15 persons for their admission at Lambirds Academy in Saint Lucia by promising them of gradual transfer to US universities in a year.

The students, who had reached the island nation in the eastern Caribbean with the hope of getting transferred to US universities, recently returned home after they found the Lambirds Academy had been shut.

The MPCD officials said its operators had been arrested on human trafficking charges.

After returning to Nepal within two weeks of their departure, the students had filed a fraud charge against Neupane.