The seven students detained in Grenada have been identified as Dipak Sapkota, 22, Chandra Bahadur Thapa, 22, Ankit Dhakal, 18, Pradip Adhikari, 23, Dipak Bhujel, 20, Arjun Sharma Kafle, 32, and Numkala Tiwari, 20.

“The students may have fallen victim to human traffickers,” quoting the police, the Jamaica Observer reported.

The arrested students gave their statements saying that they were brought to St Lucia with the proposition of enrolment at Lambirds Academy with work. The students said each of them paid $US9, 000 for the courses and $US13,000 to get to St Lucia, but on arrival they were told by law enforcement authorities that they had been duped.

Dozens of Nepali students had fallen prey to a racket of transnational human traffickers who smuggled them into St Lucia, in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with “made-up” enrolment at Lambirds Academy, based in Gros Islet.