Mount Everest Guides Accused of Poisoning Climbers to Trigger Costly Helicopter Rescue Insurance Claims

Nepal's police have charged 32 people with organised crime and fraud after a years-long investigation found that trekking guides, helicopter companies, and hospital executives colluded to manufacture fake medical emergencies on the slopes of Mount Everest and defraud international insurance companies of at least £15.2 million ($19.69 million).

The investigation, conducted by Nepal Police's Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), concluded with a 1,243-page report submitted to the District Government Attorney's Office. Charges were filed on 12 March 2026 against operators of trekking companies, helicopter firms, and physicians and administrators from multiple private hospitals in Kathmandu.

Nine suspects are in custody; the remaining 23 are believed to be at large.

How Guides Manufactured Altitude Emergencies to Order

According to the CIB investigation, as reported in detail by the Kathmandu Post, the scheme operated through two distinct methods. The simpler version involved guides approaching exhausted trekkers near the end of a multi-day route and offering them an easy way out: feign illness, and a helicopter would arrive to carry them back to Kathmandu. The guide would handle the paperwork.

The second method was more calculated. At altitudes above 3,000 metres, trekkers routinely experience mild altitude sickness symptoms including headaches, drops in blood oxygen saturation, and tingling in the extremities. Guides and hotel staff, according to investigators, were trained to exploit this moment.

They would tell trekkers they were at risk of dying and that immediate helicopter evacuation was the only option. In some documented cases, the guides allegedly went further: investigators found that Diamox (Acetazolamide) tablets, used to prevent altitude sickness, were administered alongside excessive water intake specifically to induce the very symptoms that would justify a rescue call.

In at least one case cited in the investigation, baking powder was mixed into a trekker's food to cause severe gastrointestinal distress. The resulting symptoms, which closely mimic altitude sickness and food poisoning, left victims with no clear reason to suspect deliberate interference. Once the 'emergency' was declared, the financial mechanics of the scam began.

The Billing Architecture: Single Flights Charged as Multiple Rescues

The Kathmandu Post's investigation, drawing directly on CIB interrogation records and documentary evidence, describes a systematic inflation of rescue costs at every stage. A helicopter charter priced at approximately £3,000 ($4,000) was routinely submitted to insurance companies as a claim of £9,000 ($12,000) or more. Fake flight manifests, load sheets, and boarding records were fabricated to support the inflated figures.

One documented case captures the scale of the inflation precisely. Four tourists were transported together on a single helicopter flight, on the same date, in the same aircraft. Each was nonetheless billed as a separate, individual rescue. The total rescue bill for that single flight reached approximately £23,900 ($31,100), with a separate hospital bill of £9,100 ($11,890) attached on top. This practice of billing a group flight as multiple independent rescues was systematic across the network, not isolated.

At the hospitals, the fraud extended into medical record falsification. The CIB charge sheet describes medical staff generating discharge summaries using the digital signatures of senior physicians who had no involvement in the cases, in some instances without those doctors' knowledge. One office assistant at Shreedhi International Hospital admitted during interrogation that he had provided his own X-ray, taken roughly a year earlier at a different hospital, to be used as fabricated medical evidence for a foreign trekker's insurance claim.

CCTV footage recovered by the CIB provided the most damning evidence of all. Foreign tourists whose medical records showed them receiving hospital treatment at the time were filmed on camera drinking beer in a cafe operated by one of the charged physicians. Dr Girwan Raj Timilsina of Shreedhi Hospital, speaking during police interrogation, confirmed the commission structure. He stated that his hospital paid approximately £6.9 million Nepalese rupees in commissions to Nepal Charter Service, a further £1.1 million Nepalese rupees to Heli on Call, and an additional sum to trekking operators to refer clients.

The Network: Companies Charged and the Scale of Fraudulent Claims

The CIB's 1,243-page investigation report names operators from 16 trekking companies, five rescue firms, four helicopter companies, and three hospitals. The charged helicopter operators are Mountain Helicopters, Manang Air (since rebranded as Basecamp Helicopters), and Altitude Air. The hospitals named are Swacon International Hospital, Shreedhi International Hospital, and Era International Hospital.

Among rescue operators, Mountain Rescue Service is alleged to have conducted 171 fraudulent rescues out of 1,248 total charter flights, claiming approximately £7.9 million ($10.31 million) from insurers. Nepal Charter Service allegedly carried out 75 fake rescues from 471 flights, generating £6.3 million ($8.2 million) in fraudulent claims. Everest Experience and Assistance is linked to 71 suspicious rescues from 601 flights, with insurance claims totalling £8.5 million ($11.04 million). Era International Hospital received deposits of more than £12.2 million ($15.87 million) linked to these activities, according to the CIB.

Not all foreign trekkers involved in the scheme were unwitting victims. The CIB investigation recovered a WhatsApp exchange in which a German trekker named Petra Homens complained to Rabindra Adhikari, chairman of Nepal Charter Service, that she had been double-billed. 'Your company charged double!!!' she wrote, noting her insurer had already paid the helicopter cost directly. Adhikari acknowledged the overcharge and offered a refund. The exchange, as the Post notes, confirms both the deliberate inflation of the helicopter bill and that the same individual was centrally implicated in the scheme.

The consequences for Nepal's tourism sector are already being felt. Several major international insurers, as reported by LBC, have halted coverage for trekkers in Nepal entirely in recent years as the fraud escalated. Nepal's trekking industry supports more than one million jobs directly or indirectly and contributes significantly to the national economy. Prosecutors are seeking total fines of 1.51 billion Nepalese rupees, approximately £8.7 million ($11.3 million), from the accused. Further charges have not been ruled out as investigations continue into individuals still at large.

With 23 of the 32 charged individuals still believed to be at large, Nepalese authorities face a test of whether this prosecution will end the fraud that two earlier government interventions failed to stop.