Narayan Thapa of Dhurkot Rural Municipality-6, who wanted to go to Saudi Arabia for employment, suddenly received a call from an agent on 27th November last, saying, "The ticket is coming tomorrow, I will reach Kathmandu anyway."

After an acquaintance assured that a Pakistani citizen working as a human resource manager of the Saudi National Agriculture Development Company (NADEC) would apply for a visa, he left Mukhai's Kulpuja and left home to go abroad. 

He reached Kathmandu on November 28 and waited for the ticket, but the news came that the person who issued the visa was out of touch. The 13 youths who were with Thapa were confused. When they reached the foreign employment department and realized that the labor acceptance was not online entry and it was fake, everyone lost their senses . He pleaded and complained until he decided to go abroad, but somehow the way to go abroad was not opened. After paying Rs 2 lakh to Rs 275 thousand, they returned home crying knowing that they were cheated. 

We left home on November 27 with the excitement of going abroad. After we found out that we were cheated, we returned home on December 3, Thapa said.

They also said that the person who contacted them to take them abroad was Ramu Sunar, resident of Gulmi's Dhurkot-6 and working as a driver in Saudi. Ramu introduced his own brother Laxman to Haji Khalid, a Pakistani citizen working in the company, saying that there was a job opening in Nadec Company of Saudi Arabia. After Lakshman told his relatives and local youths who had made passports thinking of going abroad, they started the process . 

Haji, calling himself a human resource manager, told the company that there was a demand for 50 workers including packaging, drivers, security guards, and that he would select the workers himself, and asked them to deposit the amount at the rate of 40,000 rupees . Thapa said that after he promised to pay more than 1,850 Saudi Riyals (66,000 Nepali Rupees) monthly, he deposited the amount on trust and later made him increase the amount under various pretexts. 

"Initially, they asked us to deposit the amount for flying at 40,000, but later we asked them to send more money for labor approval, medical, insurance, tickets, etc., and it has reached 200,000 to 275,000 rupees per person," he said. After collecting the amount, on December 27, 13 youths were called to Kathmandu asking them to fly. Even though they were called to fly to Saudi Arabia on November 28, they went to the Foreign Employment Department with all the visa, labor and insurance documents they got after they were not sent tickets. After it was found out that all the documents were fake, they were arrested. 

When they realized they had been duped, they contacted their initial contact person, Ramu Sunar . But when Ramu said that he himself was cheated and that Haji was not in contact, the victimized youths were even more shocked. "We couldn't give Ramu a visa, he ran away to Pakistan instead of returning our money, he says I am also running the embassy," said Pomraj Gharti of Gulmi Darbar-2, one of the cheated.

Now they are complaining that Ramu has started giving them trouble by not even picking up their phone . The cheated youth deposited the money in the accounts of different people in Nepal and not in Pakistani accounts.

Ramu himself has deposited money in various bank accounts in Nepal in the names of Akriti Shrestha, Bom Bahadur Wik, Jung Bahadur Wik, Mohammad Hasin Ansari, Shravan Paswan and others based on the QR code, says Padam GC of Dhurkot-6, "Their accounts are also Garima Bikas , Global IME, Lakshmi Sunrise are in different banks.' 

13 youths who were cheated with Thapa are now staying in various hotels in Kathmandu and are seeking justice in the foreign employment department. The department has sent a letter to the concerned bank to provide the details of the account holder. Based on the same letter, they believe that if the details of that person are found, they will get their money back. 

"If the person with the account comes in contact with us, we wake up in the morning to go to the foreign employment department to see if our money will be withdrawn, find out if the letter has come or not and then come back," said Thapa . They say that when they went to the bank to find out, they were more worried because they were told that they could not provide the three copies because their accounts had been closed. 

"There was no one I knew who would tell me to do this," says Thapa, "The money sought for a loan has sunk and sunk, where to go for justice?" They say that among the cheated, 3 people are from Butwal, 6/7 people are from Eastern Nepal and all others are from Gulmi. More than 30 people from Gulmi are from Dhurkot Rural Municipality. Ramu, who made contact with the Pakistani citizen, said that he himself was cheated.