Tour guides on Himalayan treks have reportedly defrauded several British and Australian insurance companies.
Several tour guides in Nepal ran a fake helicopter rescue scheme to defraud insurance companies in Australia and the UK, the Kathmandu Post has reported.
An investigation by the newspaper showed that the guides first performed emergency medical treatment, called for a helicopter, and checked the tourists at the hospital.
The insurance claim was filed, which made it difficult for foreign insurers, many of them operating from Australia and the UK, to verify the incidents that were claimed to have occurred at an altitude of 3,000 meters above sea level in the remote Himalayas, according to the report.
The newspaper published an investigative report in 2019 about defamation claims. Although the Nepalese authorities did not immediately act on the allegations, in 2025 the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police (CIB) reopened the case and found that the practice was widespread.
The CIB’s investigation revealed two methods the guides used to fake the emergency, according to the report.
The first involved tourists who did not want to come back down from high altitudes. After the trek to Everest Base Camp, which can take up to two weeks on foot, the scammers lured tourists who didn’t want to back down to pretend to be sick. They were then transported by helicopter.
In the second method, the guides used mild and common symptoms of altitude sickness, and then told the tourists that only one evacuation could save their lives.
The guides also transported multiple tourists in the same chopper, while issuing separate invoices to each passenger’s insurance company, showing it as a voluntary trip, raising claims from $4,000 to $12,000, the report said.
Health officials in collaboration with fraudsters prepared discharge summaries using digital signatures of senior doctors, while creating fake hospital admission records.
Official investigators found that 4,782 foreign patients were treated in local hospitals between 2022 and 2025 in the scandal. Some of the hospitals that received millions linked to the fraud have also been identified, according to the report.
On March 12, the CIB charged 32 people with offenses against the government and arrested nine of them. Other suspects are believed to have escaped.
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