Detained LRO officials include Niru Adhikari, Durga KC, Ananta Subedi, Upendra Mehata, Shanti Gautam, Udaya Kunwar and Pramesh Aryal.[break]
“We suspect that they are working in connivance with Paudel, the fraudster” said Superintendent of Police Yadav Raj Khanal, the head of Kaski Police Office.
The District Police Office swooped down on the LRO officials after the preliminary investigation proved the involvement of land revenue officials in the racket.
Police had nabbed Paudel and his two aides, Kamal Guvaju and Bir Bahadur Bishwokarma, on Monday. It made them public on Thursday.
The preliminary report released by the police on the racket run by Paudel shows that he swindled around Rs 21 million from four institutions alone. Of them, he had duped Rs 9.3 million from Muktinath Development Bank, Rs 4 million from New Road branch of Everest Bank, Rs 750,000 from Lekhnath branch of Everest Bank, Rs 2.5 million from Garima Development Bank and Rs 4.5 million from Fewa Finance.
“We carried out investigations in four banks and financial institutions only as five other banks and financial institutions did not report to us about the wrongdoing,” said Khanal.
He said the police will carry out further investigations once those BFIs formally lodge complaint against Paudel. We anticipate the total amount swindled by Poudel to soar after we carry out investigations at other banks.
Paudel allegedly influenced officials of LRO to prepare fake ownership documents of lands that were already pledged as collateral with other banks. On the basis of those fake documents, Paudel re-pawned the same plots to get new loans.
Officials said Paudel had launched the racket with the support of numerous aides but except for Bishwokarma and Guvaju no one have been identified so far.
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