Two weeks ago Prakash Regmi, 29, of Gorkha visited Jitendra Bahadur Shrestha, a businessman in Dhapasi. Regmi approached Shrestha, who had obtained loans from Kumari Bank, posing as a high-level official of the financial institute supervision department of the Nepal Rastra Bank.

Regmi told Shrestha that Kumari Bank was planning to blacklist him as a loan defaulter and the Central Investigation Bureau was likely to arrest him soon. In between the conservation, Regmi would feign making calls to some “inspectors” of the CIB, asking them to withhold the case for some time as he would help Shrestha settle it.

After Regmi followed him over weeks and began pestering him to provide money to settle the case, Shrestha decided to report to the CIB. On Monday, the CIB nabbed Regmi only to reveal that he was trying to dupe Shrestha. Following the arrest, it was found that Regmi was an operator of Narayani Development Bank.

This incident is not the first for the CIB but the Nepal Police unit has become extra cautious after many persons were found to have misused its name and defaming its senior officials. The CIB data show that in the past three years at least 11 persons including a police official have been arrested for misusing the CIB’s name and seeking bribe from people to settle their case.

On February 29 and March 1 this year, Indra Bahadur Khatri, 26, and Tirtha Raj Regmi, 39, of Kathmandu were arrested after the duo took Rs50,000 to settle the case of Dan Bahadur Chettri, who is charged with trafficking 27 Nepali women to New Delhi. The CIB nabbed Chettri after the girls were repatriated to Nepal in August last year following their arrest from the Indian capital.

On February 7 this year Sunil Shrestha, 46, of Bhaktapur was held after he took Rs28,000 from a Bulgarian citizen to settle a case of NIDC Capital Markets loan misappropriation.

In these incidents, the persons had either claimed to settle the cases being investigated by the CIB or given the false identity of a CIB official. Even a police official was found to have misused the CIB’s name. On August 1, 2014, Bijaya Pratap Shah, a sub-inspector from the Metropolitan Police Crime Division, and Rajendra Raj Gurung of Okhaldhunga were arrested after they had looted 5kg gold posing as CIB officials.

“These persons have been defaming our institution,” said Deputy Inspector General of Police Nawaraj Silwal, chief of the CIB. 

“We urge the public not to fall prey to these people but report to us if anyone is giving false assurance to settle cases.”