Reports that the Department of Money Laundering Investigation (DMLI) has initiated a probe into three former prime ministers – KP Sharma Oli, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and Pushpa Kamal Dahal – on charges of money laundering gained widespread attention on Sunday.
The reports emerged after the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police arrested former energy minister Deepak Khadka on Sunday morning to investigate him for money laundering offenses.
We spoke with the DMLI and the CIB regarding these developments.
Jitendra Adhikari, information officer at the DMLI, said that the investigation on Oli, Deuba, and Dahal for money laundering offenses began immediately after the Gen Z movement.
"The investigation against the three of them started right after the Gen Z movement," he said. "I am not aware of what happened after that."
There has been a strong public demand to investigate the assets of these three individuals, who have each served as prime minister multiple times. During the Gen Z protests, a video emerged allegedly showing burnt currency notes at the residence of Deuba, who was also the president of the Nepali Congress at the time. Deuba, however, has claimed that it was an AI-generated video.
The Nepali Congress itself has been calling for an impartial investigation into the matter.
Additional Inspector General Manoj KC, the CIB chief, did not confirm whether any new legal processes had moved forward regarding the investigation into the three former prime ministers' assets. However, he said that they had received a formal correspondence from the DMLI for investigation against former energy minister Khadka. Based on that, Khadka was arrested on September 9 to investigate matters related to the burnt currency found at his residence.
Sometime after the Gen Z movement, the DMLI had also collected field reports from the residences of the three former prime ministers and Khadka.
