3 dozen people are facing criminal charges for their roles in a sprawling $20 million insurance scam: Mt Everest
Nearly three dozen people are facing criminal charges for their roles in a sprawling $20 million insurance scam that targeted climbers on Mt. Everest.
In some cases, Nepali guides are accused of poisoning foreign tourists to force emergency evacuations from the world’s tallest mountain.
According to The Kathmandu Post, the scheme is simple, in theory: fake a medical emergency, call for a helicopter rescue, take the climber to the hospital, then file a false claim with foreign insurance companies that provide coverage to climbers.
The people facing charges in the massive scheme include insurance agents and trekking guides, as well as people with ties to helicopter companies, three hospitals and more than a dozen trekking companies, reports say.
But investigators found there were multiple methods for defrauding insurance companies, and some were more disturbing than others. For example, one of the scams involves lying to climbers about the mild altitude sickness they are feeling, telling them they could die unless they are immediately evacuated off the mountain. In some cases, guides gave the climbers pills and mixed baking soda into food to make them feel ill.
Hospitals also took part, writing false medical reports to inflate insurance claims. Video footage from one hospital showed a foreign tourist reported as critically ill drinking beer at a cafe run by one of the doctors.
