Dev Kumar Nepali, the mayor of Baglung’s Dhorpatan Municipality accused of cooperative fraud, has been arrested.
Indian police arrested Nepali at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on Friday.
"Mayor Nepali has been held at the Indira Gandhi Airport, Nepal’s police have also reached there," Additional Inspector General of Nepal Police Tek Prasad Rai, who is also the acting IGP, told Setopati. "We are also coordinating with the consular office there through Interpol."
Nepali is also the chairman of Image Savings and Credit Cooperative operating in Pokhara and Baglung.
He is accused of defrauding more than two billion rupees of the cooperative's savings.
Nepali had been absconding since June last year.
Police had also issued a red corner notice against Nepali through Interpol in January after he remained at large for a long time.
A case was filed against 11 people including Nepali at the Baglung District Court on July 10 last year.
A total of 1,481 people had filed complaints against Nepali and other cooperative promoters.
Investigations showed that more than Rs 1.5 billion of the savings of 800 shareholders and 3,200 depositors of the cooperative had been misappropriated in Baglung.
He is also accused of misappropriating another Rs 500 million of more than 500 depositors from the cooperative in Pokhara.
Nepali was reelected mayor of Dhorpatan from CPN-UML during the local level elections held in May 2022.
He had left CPN (Maoist Center) and joined UML before the 2017 local elections as he was not given a ticket to contest the election.
UML had suspended him as Gandaki province committee member in June last year after he was linked to the cooperative fraud case.
