According to SP Sahakul Bahadur Thapa, spokesperson of the division, the four-member gang was led by Top Bahadur Kunwar aka Deepak, 55 of Gwadi-8 of Gulmi. The gang was active in Kalanki, New Baneshwor, Samakhushi, Thamel areas, among others.Govinda Chaulagain, 40, Chauri VDC of Kavre, Nim Bahadur Kunwar, 50, Bijuli-9 of Pyuthan and Sunil Chaudhary, 28, Biratnagar-6 of Morang are the remaining members of the gang. Of them Chaudhary was found involved in the preparing identity cards and other documents required to carry out police raids.
Tipped off by a special source, a squad deployed from the division had arrested the gang red-handed while they were conducting a fake raid. Kunwar was acting as a deputy superintendent of police, Chaulagain as an inspector and Nim Bahadur was posing as a sub-inspector. Police seized Indian Rs 16,500 and NRS 60,000 from their possession.
Describing their modus operandi, police said, as per the plan one of them used to first sell expensive alcohol at low prices to shopkeepers stating that the bottle was gifted. Later on they would raid the shop, trapping the shop keeper of selling whisky lacking excise duty stamps.
The gang would than threat the shopkeeper of exposing the case and would eventually swindle cash from the victims, SP Thapa said. In few cases they were found to have duping cash from the operators assuring them to settle the case against them.