National
Multiple drivers used: Police
Multiple drivers were involved in the smuggling of 88kg gold before it entered Kathmandu in the wee hours of Monday, police said.Multiple drivers were involved in the smuggling of 88kg gold before it entered Kathmandu in the wee hours of Monday, police said.
The Tata Storme jeep (BA 17 Cha 6427) which was ferrying the gold had passed multiple check posts in Rasuwa and Nuwakot before entering the Valley where different drivers had taken charge of the vehicle at different times.
Police had arrested Manoj Adhikari of Makawanpur on the day of raid when he had said that the gold was smuggled from the Kerung border point in Rasuwa. However, investigations from the Metropolitan Police Crime Division, Teku showed that Adhikari must have been assigned to drive the vehicle only from Nuwakot.
On Wednesday, police in Rasuwa arrested drivers including Dampha Tamang and Dilip Khadka. Investigation so far has shown that Tamang had driven the vehicle from Kathmandu to Kerung while Khadka had driven it back to Rasuwa.
The arrested drivers were brought to Kathmandu for further investigation.
“The drivers are not cooperating in the investigation. Although our probe so far shows that multiple drivers must have been used before the vehicle made its way to Chhetrapati,” said Senior Superintendent of Police Dibesh Lohani, chief of the MPCD. “We know that the Chinese person Xia Qing who owns the Kathmandu One hotel in Thamel is the real owner of the gold,” said SSP Dibesh Lohani.
Although police raided the Kathmandu One hotel, they failed to come up with substantial clues regarding the smuggling case. During a brief interrogation, hotel staff said they had no clues about the owners and had not seen him around for quite some time.
SSP Lohani however maintained that they do not know if the owner “is inside or outside Nepal”.
In a biggest haul of the yellow metal ever seized, police confiscated a huge cache of gold worth over Rs430 million from Chhetrapati in the Capital at around 2am on Monday. Driver Adhikari was caught in the vehicle that had used multiple false bottoms to hide gold bars.
Smuggling of gold from China has increased in recent years, mostly to cater to the Indian market where the demand for the precious metal is high.
Until the Gorkha Earth-quake, smugglers brought in gold via the Tatopani border. After the 2015 quake destroyed roads to the trading point, smugglers of late have turned to the Kerung-Rasuwagadi route to smuggle gold into Nepal.