The Central Investigation Bureau of Police has recommended prosecuting Prithvi Bahadur Shah and 19 other members of his group in four crimes-frauds, document forgery, cooperatives frauds, and organised crimes.

Shah, the central character in a row between former finance minister Janardan Sharma and Nepal Rastra Bank Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari early last year, and other six associates are currently in police custody on charges of committing a number of frauds against foreigners. Thirteen other accused are at large, according to the police.

According to the CIB, they received $4.54 million, 22,000 pound sterling, and 340,000 which converted into Rs 639.5 million, through online hacking and getting them transferred to the account of their companies and individuals.

The CIB said on Wednesday it submitted its investigation to the office of District Attorney, Kathmandu for their prosecution.

They established relationships with foreign nationals, particularly US citizens by sending emails in the name of anti-virus updates, and bill payments to Amazon, Geek Squad, Quick books. They also established access to the bank accounts of the victims through remote access in the vicitms' devices and got the amount transferred to Nepal through various banks by composing email from the victims’ email address.

According to the police, Shah’s group sent fake bank statements of money being deposited in the accounts of victims and told them to return the same money. “In fact, Shah’s group showed a fake bank statement of a huge amount being deposited in the victim's accounts even though no amount was deposited,” said AIG Uttam Raj Subedi, chief of CIB. “The group then persuaded the victims to return the additional amount telling them that getting the amount from the undisclosed sources could invite punishment under the US laws.”

Of the total transferred amount to Nepal, US 1.50 million (Rs206.88 million) has been held by the various banks including Kumari, NCC, and Global IME without depositing them in the accounts of Shah and his associate and an additional Rs12.89 million remained in their accounts have also been frozen.

Shah however could use Rs388.66 million of the total transferred amount to invest in the areas of real estate, shares, gold, registration of the company, and the insurance sector.

According to the Police, it received 24 complaints from 56 victims, all from US citizens through the help of the Federal Investigation Bureau (FBI) of the US. “They have the claims for $2.89 million,” said Subedi. “As more amounts have been transferred from the US, there might be more victims of this group in the US.”

He said that this group has been found to operate in the US and Kolkata, India too, and there might be involvement of more people from abroad too. “The FBI is also investigating and it can locate those involved on US soil.”

The US embassy in Kathmandu also confirmed the cooperation between law enforcement agencies of Nepal.

In a press statement, the US Embassy said that in 2021 and throughout 2022, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network under the U.S. The Department of Treasury advised Nepal’s Financial Intelligence Unit of the potential scheme which conned U.S. citizens into unwittingly transferring money to bank accounts controlled by Shah.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. The Embassy helped gather additional evidence against Shah showing that he and his associates were engaging in organized crime. The CIB of Nepal Police arrested Prithvi Shah and six associates in January 2023,” the embassy said in the statement. With the confirmation from the US Embassy, the cases against Shah have become more stronger and evident.

On Wednesday itself, the Nepal Police also submitted additional evidence of criminal violations against Shah and his associates to prosecutors for allegedly stealing over $4 million in a large-scale fraud scheme targeting U.S. citizens and private enterprises.

Shah and his group had made efforts to hide the source of income by transferring the money in the name of different individuals and institutions after getting the money from abroad, according to the CIB.

During the investigation, these companies were found to have been running without getting the approval to start transactions and carried out activities beyond the objective of their establishment, the police said.

Shah also took Former finance minister Janardan Sharma on board in order to get the money frozen by various banks as per the order of the central bank. After Sharma allegedly instructed the central bank to release the amount, Governor Adhikari refused to do so triggering a widely publicised dispute between Sharma and Maha Prasad Adhikari, governor of the Nepal Rastra Bank.