Police on Friday arrested Prateek Thapa, son of CPN-UML Vice-chair and former home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, in connection with the fake Bhutanese refugee scam.

According to Assistant Inspector General of Police Deepak Thapa, he was taken into police custody from Bouddha, Kathmandu.

The junior Thapa was among those listed as absconding in a case filed by the Kathmandu District Attorney’s Office at the Kathmandu District Court last year. Investigation had revealed that Prateek, during his father’s tenure as the home minister, was involved in the crime in collusion with senior officials at the ministry and other middlemen.

He had been on the run since March 2015 after police started to take those accused of the crime into custody. On May 4 last year, Prateek issued a statement saying that he was ready to cooperate in the investigation but was still absconding.

In June last year, police arrested former home minister Balkrishna Khand of Nepali Congress, former deputy prime minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi of the CPN-UML, former home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, former home minister Thapa’s security adviser Indrajit Rai, Khand’s personal secretary Narendra KC, former Nepali Congress lawmaker Aang Tawa Sherpa and Bhutanese refugee leader Tek Nath Rizal, among others. The case is sub judice in the court.

Police filed the cases against the politicians, top officials and middlemen on charges of swindling hundreds of people promising them to send them to the United States as Bhutanese refugees.