EVEREST mountain guides have been accused of secretly poisoning climbers to trigger costly helicopter rescues as part of a multi-million pound insurance scam.
According to the Kathmandu Post, the racket works by getting climbers to stage a fake medical emergency.
A helicopter is then called to take the victim to a nearby hospital while a bogus insurance claim is written up.
Nepal Police’s Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) have identified two ways this scam can take place.
The first involves tourists who don’t want to walk back down the mountain.
Some expeditions can take up to three weeks on foot, so guides tell climbers to fake a medical emergency so a helicopter comes rather than descending themselves.
The other way is far more sinister, and involves guides making climbers believe they are having a medical emergency.
At an altitude of 3,000 metres, altitude sickness is extremely common with symptoms including headaches and tingling.
This drop in blood oxygen saturation can often be resolved with rest or hydration.
However, the CIB has revealed some guides are told to scare tourists into thinking immediate evacuation is the only thing that will save them.
If this doesn’t work, investigators found that some guides even try to give climbers mild altitude sickness tablets and excessive amounts of water to induce the required symptoms.
In one instance, baking powder was mixed into food to make tourists unwell.
Guides will try and do this to multiple victims to maximise the amount of money they make.
Although a single helicopter can carry several passengers at a time, invoices are drafted as if each needed their own aircraft
What should be a £3,000 charter suddenly becomes a £9,000 claim.
Medical reports are then forged using the digital signatures of doctors who were never involved in the case – often without their knowledge.
In some instances, fake admission records are created for tourists who were drinking beers in the canteen when they were supposedly receiving treatment.
Mount Everest
- Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth, standing at approximately 29,000ft.
- It is located in the Himalayas on the border between Nepal and China.
- The first successful summit was achieved in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.
- The mountain is part of the Himalayas, the highest mountain range in the world.
- Temperatures at the summit can drop below -60°C.
- Climbers face dangers such as avalanches, low oxygen levels, and extreme weather.
- Despite the risks, hundreds of climbers attempt to reach the summit every year.
Hospitals pay up to 25 per cent of the insurance claim to trekking companies and further 20 to 25 per cent to helicopter rescue operators.
Those behind the morally ambiguous operations then get rich from the profits.
Between 2022 and 2025, there were hundreds of confirmed fake cases, leading to a whopping £15 million being lost to fraud.
To make matters worse, the problem was first identified back in 2018 by local media.
While it did lead to a 700-page government report and policy reform, the problem did not stop there.
The head of the CIB, Manoj Kumar KC, told the Kathmandu Post: “The scam continued due to lax punitive action. When there is no action against crime, it flourishes. The insurance scam too flourished as a result.”
The government has now stepped up efforts to try and stop the problem, with the CIB charging 32 people earlier this month in relation to the scam.
Among those charged are staff from three different helicopter companies, as well as doctors and administrators from three different hospitals.
So far nine have been arrested, with the rest fleeing to avoid capture.
