KATHMANDU, March 28: In a rare case of a Chinese being involved in currency smuggling via air route, Nepal Police on Thursday arrested a 50- year-old woman in possession of USD 113,250 and Yuan 5,151 from Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) while allegedly trying to smuggle the currencies to China.
Chinese nationals have been found using land routes here to smuggle foreign currency in recent years but they were rarely found using air routes for the illegal activity.
Acting on a tip-off, police held Ying Lou (passport no. G57396840) with the illegal currencies while she was about to depart by China Southern Airlines, flight CZ 3068, at 9:20 p.m., according to DIG Bijaya Lal Kayastha, chief of Metropolitan Police Airport Security Office, Gauchar.
The illegal currencies were found hidden inside a false bottom during X-ray screenings at the departure hold baggage checking area for international flights. DIG Kayastha said the currencies were packed inside carbon paper bags and hidden skillfully under a false bottom.
"The clever way the currencies were hidden and the number of her visits to Nepal in the last two years indicate that the woman was not new to the job," he said. According to immigration records, she has been to Nepal 16 times in 2014 and over a dozen times already in 2015.
Ying Lou, originally from the eastern Chinese coastal province of Zhejiang, travels to Nepal on a business visa and has claimed that she had exchanged into dollars the amount she earned from the clothing trade in Nepal.
"We are yet to investigate further with the assistance of Metropolitan Police Crime Division," DIG Kayastha said. Police will send her to the Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI), Hariharbhawan, Lalitpur, for further investigations, along with the seized currencies.
Last year, TIA security seized Rs 5.25 million in Indian currency, USD 62,300, Riyal 7,000 and 1,350 Euros. Police arrested a Pakistani national, six Indians, a Bangladeshi and two Arabs with the illegal currencies.
Similarly, this year to date, the authorities have seized Rs 396, 000 Indian currency and USD 316, 550 while these were being smuggled.
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