-122 Chinese nationals were arrested on 27 January 2076 for renting houses in various parts of the country, including the Kathmandu Valley, while entering on tourist visas and engaging in cybercrime and other crimes.

-122 Chinese nationals who entered the country on tourist visas and rented houses in various parts of the country, including the Kathmandu Valley, and were involved in cybercrime and other crimes were arrested on 7 Paush 2076. It was revealed that most of those arrested were involved in crimes despite their visas having expired. Later, the district administration found them guilty of the crime of 'indecent behavior' and fined all the arrested Chinese and deported them.

- The government machinery was unaware that an organized gang had been smuggling gold through the international airport and the northern border checkpoints and operating a gold-melting factory in Tokha, Kathmandu for a long time. It was only during an investigation into about 61 kg of smuggled gold on 3 Shrawan 2080 that it was revealed that a Chinese gang had set up a gold-melting factory in Tokha and was transporting the gold in the form of biscuits as per the 'order' to its destination.

– Some foreign nationals who entered on tourist visas were found to be involved in crimes such as forced religious conversion and child sexual exploitation by using financial inducements. Chinese nationals who entered on tourist visas were found to be operating a ‘marriage bureau’ in Kathmandu and illegally sending Nepali women to China. After it was found that they were involved in the business of collecting money from Nepali women and sending them to China under the guise of a marriage bureau, a team of the Immigration Department arrested 4 Chinese nationals from Sohrakhutte on 29 Kartik and one from Maharajgunj area last week, and four of them were deported. One Chinese national is in the custody of the Immigration Department. Foreign nationals have also been involved in incidents of foreigners going to areas where travel is prohibited under ‘other guises’.

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Despite the confirmation of the ‘involvement of foreign nationals in crimes and other suspicious activities’ in an organized manner, the government was criticized for not taking effective steps in regulation, monitoring and management from the moment they entered Nepal. Keeping this in mind, the government has implemented the ‘Foreign National Management Information System (FNMIS)’ for the first time to regulate, monitor, manage and facilitate the activities of foreign nationals in Nepal. Home Minister Om Prakash Aryal inaugurated the immigration system on Thursday, as the English New Year began on January 1, 2026. The department has stated that the details collected in the system will be used for national security, the security of foreign nationals and criminal investigations.

Inaugurating the system developed by Immigration, Home Minister Aryal said that this would help strengthen national security. ‘Strengthening national security is the need of the hour, the government is committed to it,’ he said, ‘appropriate support is needed from stakeholders, this system will remain a milestone for the immigration administration.’

With the development of this system, the details of foreign citizens from whichever sector they take services, including their nationality, name, passport and visa, will be linked to the system developed by the immigration. This will easily identify the details of whether or not a foreign citizen has stayed as per the visa law. The immigration will link hotels/lodges, domestic airline companies, helicopter companies, trekking agencies, public transport services, mountaineering agencies, tours and travel agencies, telecom service providers, banks and financial institutions, foreign exchange centers, tourist guides, tourist police, and other organizations related to tourists to the immigration system, and now the organization from which foreign citizens take services will have to fill in the details in the prescribed format. The details filled in this way will go to the central immigration record. The department has developed this system to ‘monitor, regulate, facilitate and manage’ the activities of foreign nationals from the time they enter Nepal to the time they depart by connecting government and private organizations providing services to foreign nationals. In the first phase, star hotels, trekking agencies and other organizations in the Kathmandu Valley have been affiliated with this system of the department.

The department has stated that domestic airlines, travel agencies, public transport vehicles transporting tourists, foreign exchange centers, etc. will be mandatory affiliated with it from March 1, 2 months later. After that, in the third phase, the department is preparing to actively involve other hotels/lodges in the regulation/monitoring, management and facilitation of the activities of foreign nationals.

Director General of the department Ramchandra Tiwari said that now the details of foreign citizens staying in hotels and leaving them, and those who availed services including travel/trekking, should also be given to the immigration through a system that is linked to it. He said that the issue of where and what foreign citizens do after entering Nepal should be identified by the state mechanism, but currently the focus is only on the surveillance done by individuals. He said that now, not individuals, the system will identify and take action against those who do wrong.

‘For whatever purpose foreign citizens come within our borders, their activities need to be in the state’s knowledge, that is why this system has been implemented,’ said Director General Tiwari. He said that from the perspective of national security, a policy/law and action plan should be formulated considering the arrivals from international borders and the risks posed by this, so there is a strict restriction on activities going out of Nepal and the department is continuing its efforts to improve this.

The department says that this system will be effective in terms of security of foreign citizens and tourists, facilities provided by the state when necessary, and ease of rescue, and ease of immediate identification of activities that violate visas or are against prevailing laws, social values, and norms in Nepal.