Shrestha, 55, is accused of committing a colossal banking fraud, initially calculated as being to the tune of Rs 2,662,309,424, while leading the ´C’ category financial institution that was just about to upgrade itself into a commercial bank. [break]
Nepal Police has indicted Shrestha on four different charges as per the relevant laws and injuntions--Banking Crime and Penal Act, Nepal Rastra Bank Act and two different directives concerning financial institutions.
Shrestha personally misappropriated deposits worth over Rs 880 million, including unlawfully issued loans worth over Rs 1.57 billion, and deposits that were misused to increase founding shares. He also issued loans worth over Rs 200 million to promoters and their groups, the Crime Investigation Bureau (CIB) claimed.
CIB chief DIG Upendra Kant Aryal said that Nepal Police would build a case against Shrestha, to demand reimbursement of the defrauded amount and a sentence of five years, as per the existing laws.
Aryal said Shrestha´s arrest comes as the biggest ever achievement for enforcement agencies targeting financial crime. "With this, CIB has arrested the promoters of five different financial institutions and succeeded in putting them on trail as per the directives of Nepal Rastra Bank. These cases altogether involve some Rs 5.12 billion", he said.
CIB said a special team had picked up Shrestha from Mahendranagar, Kanchanpur district, but investigation officials admitted on condition of anonymity that he was taken under control from Mahendranagar after Indian police brought him across the border for their Nepali counterparts.
This is the second handover to Nepal this year of a most wanted absconder by the Indian authorities. Earlier, Rohit Paliwal, the mastermind in Dr. Bhaktaman Shrestha´s kidnapping, was handed over to Nepal Police in Mahendranagar in a similar manner.
DIG Aryal claimed that Shrestha´s arrest was ´entirely by´ Nepal Police, adding that both India and Nepal keep exchanging information on fugitives from justice.
Shrestha’s wife Geeta and son Saurav have also been hauled up in the case but two NSMF promoters are at large. CIB has also suspended the passports of Shrestha´s two other sons--Utsav and Gaurav, who were nabbed along with their father but released immediately after general interrogations.
Shrestha, meanwhile, said in police questioning presented as visual matter to media that he could be ´partially´ guilty in the financial irregularities at NSMF.
"But I am not single-handedly guilty in all the cases. The system was damaged and it has to be investigated how it was done. I am ready to compensate from my personal assets given any infirmities on my part during my stint at the company as executive chairman," he said.
No Political Interference
DIG Aryal said that CIB has not faced any political interference while tacking down the accused in financial crimes.
"We have made tracking down financial crime our top priority as modern-day crime usually has financial motives," he said.
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