KATHMANDU, AUGUST 6

The Department of Revenue Investigation today sent all the 18 arrestees and their files to Nepal Police, allowing the Central Investigation Bureau to investigate the 100-kg gold smuggling racket under criminal offence.

"We are sending all the accused arrestees, gathered evidences, and other documents to the CIB as it is," said Director General of DoRI Nawaraj Dhungana.

He further said the 100-kg gold smuggled was not just a matter of revenue embezzlement but a case of organised crime, so it was deemed necessary to hand over the case to the police.

"The collected evidences show that the offence is inter-country organised crime that requires skilled and trained investigation officers. Thus, we have handed over the case to the police," Dhungana said.

The DoRI had gone to the police headquarters to hand over documents to Nepal Police Chief IGP Basanta Kunwar late in the evening. The headquarters will then hand over the investigation responsibility to the CIB. The CIB has a separate unit that will investigate financial irregularities and organised crime.

A police source said the headquarters had started working on employing other police departments like Cyber Bureau and Special Bureau so that the investigation would be more effective.

Earlier, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal had asked the CIB to take over the case. Following PM Dahal's direction, the CIB had also started to investigate the issue on its own forming a special team under the leadership of DSP Durgaraj Dahal.

The DoRI's ability to investigate the case was questioned largely by the main opposition CPN-UML that has been asking the government to allow the police to carry out investigation.

On July 29, racketeers had successfully evaded customs and passed 100-kg gold through Tribhuvan International Airport.

However, authorities were able to apprehend a couple of people from outside the airport, which later revealed the deep-rooted gold smuggling racket in the country.

So far, 18 persons have been arrested in the crime. However, authorities are still clueless about who owned the gold.

The DoRI said the confiscated gold was part of a larger racket wherein smugglers had been managing to smuggle the gold into the country on numerous occasions.

A version of this article appears in the print on August 7, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.