Nepal Police on Thursday arrested Bhutanese refugee leader Tek Nath Rizal in connection with the fake refugee scam.

The authorities earlier in the day had apprehended Nepal Hajj Committee President Shamsher Miya for his alleged involvement in the scam.

According to Superintendent of Police Sitaram Rijal, spokesperson for the District Police Range Kathmandu, the refugee leader was arrested from the Tribhuvan International Airport in the afternoon as he arrived from Jhapa.

The court has remanded him to two days in custody, the police spokesperson told the Post.

The refugee leader was on the police radar based on statements recorded by the other accused who have already been arrested.

“We have detained him for investigation,” Senior Superintendent of Police Dan Bahadur Karki told the Post. “This is all that we can say for now. We will mention other things in the document to be submitted to the court.”

Rizal was kept at Metropolitan Police Range, Teku until the evening. “We are trying to find an appropriate place for him,” said Karki.

Rizal has been leading Bhutanese refugees sheltered in eastern parts of Nepal for the past three decades. He opposed their third-country resettlement as the process went ahead with several Western countries taking in most of the refugees from Nepal. Rizal’s focus was always on their repatriation.

A total of 15 people including former deputy prime minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi and former home minister Bal Krishna Khand have so far been arrested in connection with the scam in which hundreds of people were swindled out of millions of rupees on the false promise of sending them to the United States as Bhutanese refugees.

Also, other top officials including former home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, who was working as a secretary at the Office of the Vice President until his arrest, former home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa’s security adviser Indrajit Rai, former home minister Khand’s personal secretary, among others, are among those arrested so far.

After being caught near Singha Durbar on Thursday afternoon, Miya was taken to the Teku Police Office where he will remain in custody, said SSP Karki.

The police are preparing the documents to press charges against them in the court, he added.

Police said they arrested Miya as his vehicle was found to have been used by the members of the refugee racket.

“An arrest warrant was issued against him a week ago, but he wasn’t found,” SSP Karki told the Post. “As soon as we found him today, we detained him.”

The Hajj Committee, which Miya has been heading for over two years, is under the home ministry.

The then home minister Thapa of the CPN-UML had appointed Miya as committee chief in January 2021. Later, Nepali Congress’s Khand, who succeeded Thapa, also gave continuity to Miya even though the committee usually gets a new chief with the change in government leadership. An arrest warrant has been issued against Thapa’s son Pratik in connection with the scam.