Ten people in Nepal have been busted for charging unemployed young men exorbitant amounts of money for “tourist visas” to Russia that ultimately led to them being funneled into the Russian military, local authorities say.
Kathmandu District Police chief Bhupendra Khatri said each person was charged $9,000 for the trip and visa to Russia, mostly through the United Arab Emirates, according to Reuters.
Somehow, the men were then recruited into the Russian army, though it’s not exactly clear how. It was also unclear how many men were recruited by what the police chief described as a “human smuggling” ring.
Khatri described the scheme as “organized crime” and said the 10 suspects in police custody will soon appear in court. News of the arrests comes after Nepal’s Foreign Ministry called on the Russian government to stop recruiting Nepali citizens for the war against Ukraine, saying at least six had already been killed.
Two of those killed have reportedly already been buried in Russia, including Sandip Thapaliya, whose family spoke to The New York Times in late October.
Thapaliya had reportedly been excited to join the Russian military after trouble finding work at home in Nepal drove him to the country in search of new opportunities. He told his sister —who’d warned him that “to them, you’re just an insect”—not to worry, since he was only signing up as a medic.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian media published a video interview with a Nepali man who was reportedly captured on the battlefield by the Ukrainian military. In it, the man says he’s 22 years old and that he joined the Russian army after arriving in Russia as a student but running out of money to cover his school fees.
He said the military had not even paid him the promised salary, giving him only a meager 4,000 rubles ($43) over the course of three months.
“Many of my friends [were] killed there,” he said of the war.
