Two Chinese held with $270,362

SINDHUPALCHWOK, Aug 18: The police on Wednesday arrested two Chinese nationals from Barhabise bazar for possessing US dollars 2, 70, 362 that the latter were trying to smuggle into the bordering Chinese town of Khasa.



Three Nepali nationals accompanying the Chinese traffickers -- Jeng Sufang and Liu Hongfan -- in a car (Ba 2 Cha 6112) were also detained. Purna Bahadur Ale Magar, 34, of Ramechhap, identified himself as the porter and Krishna Thapa, of Kathmandu, as a travel agent while Bhimsen Shresth, of Gati-2 in Sindhupalchwok, was the driver.



The police handed the detainees over to the Revenue Investigation Department for prosecution. “We busted them following a tip-off,” said Inspector Heramba Sharma.



Magar admitted that the Chinese traffickers hired him to take the illegal dollars to Tatopani. “I was to get NRs 13,500 for this. Another Chinese would have met me at Tatopani to get hold of the amount,” he told Republica.



“Since Magar confesses carrying the illegal dollars himself and does not point to others, we so far estimate that two other Nepali nationals are innocent. Yet, we conduct some interrogations only as they were found together,” Sharma added.



According to the police, this is the largest seizure of illegal US dollars ever made along the Araniko Highway in the face of a rampant trend of dollars getting trafficked to China.

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