Kathmandu. Two Chinese and a Filipino national have been jailed on charges of using Nepalis who went to Dubai on visit visas to run an illegal call center. Those jailed include Lin Qingjing, Ding Jihong and a Filipino woman, Hanipa Xinxuet. The bench of Lalitpur District Court Judge Nirmala Yongya on Monday ordered them to be jailed for trial.
The others have been ordered to be released on bail, said Hovindra Bogati, SP and spokesperson of the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB). The CIB raided an illegal call center run by a Chinese person in Jawalakhel on the night of 26 Bhadra and arrested 50 people and proceeded with the investigation. The investigation revealed that the call center here had a Dubai connection. The police had recovered 194 mobile phones, 55 computers and 4 laptops from the call center. During the investigation with the help of these devices, an illegal cryptocurrency transaction worth about one billion was found.
Two of the arrested are Chinese call center operators and a Filipino female language translator and assistant. They were detained by the police for two months and investigated. Immediately after the CIB submitted the investigation report, the District Attorney’s Office filed a case in the Lalitpur District Court, making 36 people defendants. Initially, a summons was issued against them for the offense of not using physical currency as per Section 262 of the Criminal Code. However, a case has been filed against them for organized crime, saying that they were operating an economic crime business by spreading their network from Dubai to Nepal in an organized manner.
The CIB has concluded that they were operating an illegal cryptocurrency business in an organized manner by creating an international network under the plan of a Chinese gang. Since they were operating this business in Dubai, all of them were arrested and deported by the Dubai police. After being deported from Dubai, the CIB’s investigation revealed that they were operating the same business in Jawalakhel under the plan of the Chinese.
The gang started its work by renting Jagdish Upadhyay’s house in Jawalakhel for Rs 3 lakh per month. The CIB has concluded that it was found that the call center was also used to commit ‘online fraud’ by placing women’s profile photos on dating apps such as Hinge, Bumble, Muslima, Insaha, Salama, Muz, Acupid, Alkhattaba and other dating apps and making men from Europe, America and other countries friends.
The CIB had initially detained only 8 people and released 42 of the 50 arrested on bail. However, during the investigation, when the role of others was revealed, they were also detained and the investigation was taken forward. During the investigation, it was revealed that 33 Nepalis who were arrested from the Chinese call center and are now being prosecuted had gone to Dubai on visit visas. It has been found that they had come into contact with the Chinese gang in search of work.