KATHMANDU, Dec 19: The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police has been receiving an increasing number of complaints against Prabhu Management Pvt Ltd (PMPL), a subsidiary of Prabhu Group, alleging that the company was involved in several financial frauds.
Shiva Kumar Shrestha, spokesperson of the CIB, informed that the Bureau has been receiving an increasing number of complaints against PMPL, mainly after the scam of Prabhu Bank came to the public. According to him, 50 cooperatives submitted their complaints against PMPL in the last week alone.
Previously, the CIB had filed a total of 3,794 complaints against the company. The number surged again after the CIB, a few days ago, via a public notice, called all those victimised by the PMPL to forward their unpaid claim amount along with necessary evidence.
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Mainly, the cooperatives, which had not received the refund of the remittance payment to the service recipients, along with failing to get refunds for the security deposit, dividends, and outstanding dues of cooperatives, have been writing repeatedly against PMPL, said the CIB.
According to Shrestha, they collected 88 complaints on financial frauds against PMPL over the period after the issuance of the public notice. Out of these, thirty-eight cases are under the purview of the court.
PMPL was made a super agent of Prabhu Remittance being operated under the Prabhu Group. The company, which was delegated to settle remittance payments by appointing cooperatives in rural areas, had collected deposits from the concerned cooperatives.
Former lawmaker Devi Prakash Bhattachan was the then chairperson of PMPL, while Kusum Lama is leading the company at present. The CIB has arrested Bhattachan, while it has also received complaints against Lama, accused in the same case of financial frauds.
Bhattachan and Lama were found to have evolved from travel agencies and became partners in the remittance business in their commercial venture. After they disintegrated in their business, Lama had even filed a complaint against Bhattachan alleging fraud.
The investigation found that PMPL illegally received remittance funds and reconciled them through the hundi system using accounts at Citizens Bank. Prabhu Management and Prabhu Money Transfer Pvt Ltd were found to have signed an agreement in December 2012 to distribute remittance payments through cooperatives. These companies are also alleged to have violated the Nepal Rastra Bank Remittance Regulations, 2022, and failed to reimburse several cooperatives after collecting remittance funds.
In the charge sheet submitted by the police to the government attorney’s office and submitted by the government attorney’s office to the court, it is stated that PMPL has yet to pay over Rs 1.883 billion to 1,000 cooperatives.
