KATHMANDU — The man police picked up Friday had been converting stolen money into cryptocurrency for months. The total hit Rs 14.87 million before anyone stopped him. Mukesh Prajapati, 25, of Madhyapur Thimi-5, Bhaktapur, now sits in custody.
The Kathmandu District Court gave police five days to question him. Investigators say he used social media to find victims, promised them something — the police report calls them “various inducements” — took their money, and turned it into digital assets.
Cryptocurrency is illegal in Nepal. The Nepal Rastra Bank has said so, repeatedly. But the law and the practice have been two different things.
For years, people have traded bitcoin and other coins through informal channels, sometimes openly, sometimes in the shadows. This arrest shows the gap is closing.
Police spokesperson Superintendent Pawan Kumar Bhattarai confirmed the scale: transactions worth Rs 148,76,527.46. That is precise. That is the number investigators found.
They also recovered digital assets worth 7,485 US dollars from Prajapati’s accounts — roughly Rs 1.14 million. The rest of the money is gone, likely already traded or moved. How did it work?
The pattern is familiar now. A young man, active on social media.
He finds people who do not fully understand the risks. He offers them something — a deal, an investment, a promise. They send money.
He converts it into cryptocurrency, which is hard to trace and easy to move. The victims are left with nothing.
This is not a new scheme. Similar cases have been reported across the Kathmandu Valley over the last two years. What is new is the size.
Rs 14.87 million is a lot of money for a single operator. It suggests either a long-running operation or a very effective one. For families in Bhaktapur and surrounding areas, the case is a warning.
Social media platforms are full of opportunities. Not all of them are real.
People who grew up without digital finance are now being asked to trust strangers online with their savings. Some are learning the hard way. Police are still investigating.
They have not said how many victims there are. They have not said whether more arrests are coming.
The five-day remand will give them time to trace the transactions, to find the digital trail, to see where the money went. Cryptocurrency trading in Nepal carries serious legal consequences. This arrest proves that.
But the law alone may not stop the practice. The technology is global. The transactions are borderless.
A young man in Bhaktapur can take money from someone in Kathmandu and convert it into digital coins that exist nowhere and everywhere at once. Nepal’s central bank has warned repeatedly.
The warnings have not stopped everyone. This case may change that calculation. If the courts come down hard on Prajapati, others in the same business might think twice.
If more victims come forward, the scale of the problem will become clearer. For now, one man sits in police custody.
His social media accounts are being examined. His digital wallets have been emptied by investigators. The Rs 14.87 million question is whether this is the end of one operation or the beginning of a wider crackdown.
