The suspects’ names are new, but the scheme is not. Mountain guides persuade their clients to take a rescue helicopter ride due to a supposed emergency. The “patients” are transported to specific hospitals.
The insurance companies bear the cost. The alleged rescue flights are sometimes billed multiple times, and doctors issue inflated bills. And the black sheep share “commissions” among themselves.
The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of the Nepalese police presented a 1,243-page report last weekend. In it, investigators recommend that the public prosecutor’s office charge 33 individuals with fraud related to helicopter rescue flights. Ten of them are already in custody. The first arrests took place in January.
Millions in losses for insurance companies
The report names 16 trekking companies, five rescue companies, three hospitals, and four helicopter companies that are alleged to have been involved in the criminal activities. Investigators estimate the total financial loss at the equivalent of nearly ten million U.S. dollars.
As early as 2018, a fraud scandal involving alleged helicopter rescue flights had been uncovered in Nepal. The government at the time had responded with new guidelines, though experts had already cast doubt on their effectiveness back then.
Folini: “More than half of the rescue flights not strictly necessary”
Despite the new cases of fraud, the situation has improved overall, Maurizio Folini writes to me. The Italian helicopter pilot has been flying regular missions in the world’s highest mountains since 2011; in 2013, he achieved the highest helicopter rescue of all time on Mount Everest when he transported a Nepalese mountaineer down from 7,800 meters on a longline.
“In the meantime, specialized insurance companies (such as Global Rescue) have organized themselves. These companies work exclusively with selected helicopter operators and hospitals,” explains Maurizio. “In addition, during the season they have their own staff, for example in Lukla and Kathmandu, to ensure and pay for comprehensive and reliable care for their insured patients.”
Nevertheless, he believes “that more than half of helicopter rescues are not strictly necessary,” the 60-year-old writes to me. “Unfortunately, it is almost always the same companies (expedition and trekking agencies, as well as helicopter firms) that engage in such practices.”