The Chinese Embassy on Monday issued travel documents for the 122 Chinese nationals who are due to be deported after they were arrested from different parts of Kathmandu a few weeks ago.

According to Ishwor Raj Poudel, director general at the Department of Immigration, the department has received necessary legal documents from the Chinese Embassy to deport the arrested Chinese nationals.

On Sunday, the District Administration Office had ordered a fine of Rs1,000 to all the arrested Chinese nationals for indecent behaviour.

Nepal and China have not signed an extradition treaty, but during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Nepal in October, the two countries signed a Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal Matters.

As per the pact, Nepal will hand over Chinese nationals to the Chinese authorities if they have breached Nepali laws—like overstaying or doing business while on a tourist visa—but have not committed any crime in Nepali land.

The Chinese nationals were arrested on December 23 in a joint Nepal-China operation. A team comprising the Central Investigation Bureau, Metropolitan Police Range and Metropolitan Crime Division had conducted raids on different houses in the Manamaiju, Bansbari and Budanilakantha areas after tip-offs that some Chinese nationals were involved in some suspicious activities.

Following the arrests, the CIB had recovered as many as 67 passports, along with 747 mobile phones, 331 laptops, 18 CPUs, 19 monitors, 22 pen drives and 327 SIM cards from the arrestees.

Of late, concerns have grown over Chinese nationals’ involvement in financial crimes.

In September, five Chinese nationals were arrested for using cloned debit cards to withdraw millions of rupees from different cash dispensers in Kathmandu. At the time, police had confiscated 132 forged VISA debit cards, 17 authentic VISA cards, six mobile phones, a laptop and a data card from them.