Eight individuals, including the key accused Jyoti Gurung and Jyoti Bahadur Bhandari, have been charged with embezzling over Rs170 million from the Miteri Cooperative, Lalitpur.

Following a Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) probe, the District Government Attorney’s Office, Lalitpur filed a fraud, forgery, and organised crime case against them at the Lalitpur District Court on Sunday under the organised crime and Nepal Rastra Bank Act 2001.

Bhandari, 43, from Bardiya, Suresh Adhikari, 34, and Subash Khatri, 36, from Dhading have been arrested. The report also names five other people, who remain at large, as defendants.

Those absconding include Jyoti Gurung, the 47-year-old Syangja resident and former wife of Nepali Congress Vice-president Dhanraj Gurung; Kumbharaj Gurung, 81, also from Syangja; Vijay Kumar Rai, 49, from Khotang; Pritam Adhikari, 35, from Baglung; and Arjun Aram, 33, from Sindhupalchok.

They are accused of embezzling Rs142.9 million from the Miteri Cooperative. In collusion with one another, they are also charged with swindling an additional Rs34.3 million by claiming that a parcel worth Rs331.1 million had been sent from Cambodia and demanding commission fees for its release.

“But not every individual named in the case has been implicated on the same charge,” said Bharat Kumar Mainali, spokesperson for the District Government Attorney’s Office, Lalitpur. “Punishment has been demanded based on the intensity of the crime committed by the individual.”

Mainali further said that the amount claimed to be recovered from every accused also varies.

On August 13, the CIB of Nepal Police submitted its investigation report on the Miteri Cooperative case to the Lalitpur district attorney.

Yubraj Khadka, spokesperson for the CIB, said key suspects Bhandari, Adhikari, and Khatri are in custody. The report submitted by the CIB names eight more individuals, three additional defendants, and two absconders.

“Our investigation report has recommended recovering about 170 million from Jyoti Gurung and Bhandari and fining Adhikari and Khatri around 130 million each,” CIB spokesperson Khadka said. Apart from cooperative funds embezzlement, Khatri also faces charges including crypto trading and destroying evidence, with a proposed compensation of Rs6 billion, said Khadka.

The investigation has identified Jyoti Gurung and Jyoti Bahadur Bhandari as the main perpetrators. Jyoti Gurung is currently at large, while Bhandari was arrested and brought back from Cambodia a few months ago.

The report submitted by the district attorney to the District Court, Lalitpur, states that Bhandari revealed Gurung’s involvement in the crime, which other defendants also hinted at.

Congress leader Gurung was also summoned by the CIB for the investigation last December after his former wife Jyoti Gurung’s name surfaced in the fraud case.

However, Gurung was not named a defendant claiming that they couldn’t establish his involvement in the case, according to Mainali.

“A loan taken in Jyoti Gurung’s name before our divorce was paid off by selling my property and the house,” Congress leader Gurung said while recording his statement with the CIB.

The police bureau did not further its investigation into Gurung’s involvement in the case. Leaders of opposition parties, especially the Rastriya Swatantra Party, accused the government of sparing Gurung because he was a top leader of the largest party in the ruling coalition.

The report submitted to the district court by the district attorney also claims that money embezzled from the Miteri Cooperative from Jyoti Gurung was sent to Jyoti Bhandari, who was in Cambodia at the time, from where he carries out fraudulent activities. The report also mentions other people involved in the case.

As the district court started recording the statement on Monday, questions raised in the investigation report were asked to the plaintiff. According to Mainali, the court will start prosecution hearings on Thursday, after statement recording is over on Wednesday.

The CIB arrested Khatri on June 29 following leads from Bhandari, who was extradited from Cambodia.

Bhandari fled allegedly after committing a cooperative fraud and travelled through Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam to reach Cambodia.

According to the CIB investigation, while abroad, Bhandari contacted the officials at the Miteri Cooperative online and lured them through phishing tactics to commit fraud.

“Since he demanded extra money to send the embezzled cooperative funds to Nepal from abroad, citing that he would need to pay local taxes, Bhandari was found guilty of further fraud,” CIB spokesperson Khadka said after Khatri’s arrest.

Despite not being directly connected to Bhandari, Khatri assisted him in collecting the money from abroad as Bhandari had asked.

While the CIB has submitted its investigation report on the Miteri Cooperative embezzlement case, the whereabouts of Jyoti Gurung, a key suspect of the fraud, are still unknown.

Retired servicemen from the British and Indian armies started the Miteri Cooperative. Congress leader Gurung’s former wife, Jyoti, joined this cooperative as a clerk on May 25, 2000. Within two months, she was promoted to accountant and became the general manager in 2018.

After becoming the general manager, Jyoti transferred the cooperative’s funds to Jyoti Bahadur Bhandari.

When Bhandari ran away with the money given by Jyoti Gurung, Congress leader Dhanraj was accused of suspiciously divorcing his wife. They are charged with misusing more than 140.81 million rupees of the cooperative.