Controversial businessman Deepak Bhatt has been blacklisted by the Immigration Department as a detailed investigation into money laundering offences intensifies. The Immigration Department blacklisted Bhatt on Monday based on a letter from the Money Laundering Investigation Department. Two officials from the Money Laundering Investigation Department and the Immigration Department confirmed that Bhatt has been blacklisted.

‘Bhatt has been blacklisted as a detailed investigation into money laundering offences has begun,’ an official said, ‘Bhatt has been blacklisted in view of the possibility of absconding. Now, if he has to go abroad, he will have to seek government approval.’

Bhatt has been banned from traveling abroad after being blacklisted by the Immigration Department. People on the immigration blacklist are not allowed to travel abroad without prior approval from the relevant investigating agency or the Nepal government.

Controversial businessman Bhatt is the head of Infinity Holdings. He has been accused of being involved in suspicious activities ranging from obtaining large public procurement contracts, licenses of hydropower, banks/insurance companies and other companies by 'taking them into his hands' to manipulating tax rates included in the annual budget. In November 2079, after the Infinity Holdings, headed by Bhatt, and details of suspicious transactions through it were found, he was drawn into the investigation of the Money Laundering Investigation Department . During that time, the department also took an initial statement from him in December 2079. However, since the investigation was accused of being suppressed under the guise of power, now the power equation has changed and the investigation has been moved forward by reviving the old file against Bhatt.

Bhatt has been accused of 'manipulating' contracts

and hydropower licenses for everything from army and police rations, uniforms and helicopters to weapons. When the then Congress president Sher Bahadur Deuba was the Prime Minister and the then Maoist leader Janardan Sharma was the Finance Minister, he was accused of interfering in the manipulation of tax rates according to the interests of certain businessmen. Now, former Prime Minister Deuba and his family have also been dragged into a money laundering investigation. The incident of the then Finance Minister Sharma allowing unauthorized persons to enter the ministry while preparing the 2079 budget and manipulating tax rates had come to light. Before that, when the supplementary budget was brought in 2078, Bhatta was also accused of putting small industries in crisis by giving exemptions on customs duties for a limited number of large steel industries. Later, when the Rastra Bank investigated the suspicion of suspicious financial transactions, it sent a letter to the department requesting an investigation against Bhatta. In a letter sent to the department by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the National Bank in 2079 to investigate Bhatt, it was mentioned that Rs 450 million was ‘transferred’ from an account in the name of Jagdamba Steel Pvt. Ltd. at Nepal Investment Bank in June 2021 to an account in Bhatt’s name at Siddhartha Bank. However, the audit report of Jagdamba Steel for 2077/78 did not find any details of transactions of Rs 450 million with Bhatt and his company. It was found that Rs 300 million 1587 thousand was ‘transferred’ to an overdraft (OD) account in Bhatt’s name in June and July 2021. However, in the meantime, it was found that Rs 450 million 445 thousand was withdrawn from the OD. It was found that Bhatt had made transactions of up to Rs 450 million from the account, which has a limit of Rs 50 million only for using loans approved by the bank or for reimbursement.

Similarly, the FIU letter mentioned that repeated transactions were found in the OD account of Bhatt's sole-owned 'Infinity Holdings Pvt. Ltd.' during the same period. The OD limit in this account was Rs 440 million. However, in July 2021, Rs 184 million 95 thousand was deposited in this account and Rs 634 million 93 thousand was withdrawn. A source from the Money Laundering Investigation Department said that a detailed investigation has been intensified in this matter after details were found that Bhatt had laundered 'illegally' acquired assets in various forms and guises. 'Since the initial investigation is already underway, it has been taken up for a detailed investigation,' the source said.

Bhatt and his affiliated Infinity security agency have also been working as an agent of a foreign company in purchasing weapons. He has been accused of 'manipulating' everything from political appointments, transfers and promotions to tax rate manipulation.

Bhatt was involved in everything from distributing licenses to Himalayan Re-Insurance on a 'commission' during the Corona period to appointing favorable people to the Securities and Exchange Board to obtain a license for a new stock exchange, from manipulating tax rates by using scissors in the budget in the middle of the night to tax exemptions that benefit certain people, to granting microfinance licenses to vested interests.

Bhatt was also active in providing tax exemptions that benefit Hilton Hotel when the supplementary budget was brought in 2078 BS. When Maoist leader Janardan Sharma was the Energy Minister, the construction of the Budhigandaki Hydropower Project, with an investment of Rs 260 billion, was handed over without competition to the Chinese company Gejuwa, of which Bhatt was the local agent.

12 years ago, Bhatt, who had reached the police headquarters to arrange the purchase of weapons worth Rs 1.5 billion for the Nepal Police, had a secret

conversation with the then DIG of the police, Rajendra Singh Bhandari, which was revealed

. Bhatt reached the police headquarters with pressure to close the arms deal, but the police did not want to proceed with his plan. After the police rejected his plan, the then DIG and Chief of the Administration Department of the police, Bhandari, was transferred elsewhere under pressure from the power center. After Bhandari was removed, Bhatt tried to move forward with the procurement plan again. But that too did not succeed. Although the deal according to his plan was continued until last year, it was not completed. The Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, and the Chief of the Authority worked in a way that was favorable to Bhatt. However, when the arms procurement dispute came to the surface, the contract was stopped. The last time, in 2080, Bhatt had also won a contract to buy arms worth one and a half billion for the police and the armed forces at an expensive price. After this contract case and the related irregularities came to light, this contract was stopped later. Santosh Narayan Shrestha and Sharad Ojha were appointed as the chairmen of the Nepal Securities and Exchange Board of Nepal and the Insurance Authority of Nepal, respectively, as part of a scheme by businessmen including Bhatta. Ojha has been relieved of his post after it was confirmed that he was appointed without qualification. Sources say that he is also under investigation by the CIAA and other agencies, citing a conflict of interest in the appointment of Shrestha, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of Nepal.