Police have arrested a woman for allegedly cheating several unemployed youths. She allegedly promised them lucrative jobs in Dubai, but left them in a lurch.

 

According to Metropolitan Police Crime Division, Bimala Thapa, 34, of Hauwagadhi Rural Municipality-9, Bhojpur, residing in Samakhushi, Kathmandu, was taken into custody yesterday acting on a complaint lodged by the victims. MPCD said she had swindled Mohammad Rayan and Sabir Rayan of Dhanusha of Rs 440,000.

 

Thapa, an employee at Pinglasthan-based Compass Recruitment Manpower Company, took the victims into confidence, saying she would get them working visa in Dubai and collected the cash from them. She, however, provided them tourist visa and asked them to fly to Dubai for ‘foreign employment’, only to be sent back by the Immigration Office at Tribhuvan International Airport on March 25.

 

The government has banned Nepalis without travel history from going to Gulf countries on visit visa to curb the trend of human trafficking.According to police, some manpower and travel agents were found to have trafficked unemployed youths, including women, to Gulf and African countries on tourist visa with the assurance of a lucrative job there.

 

No foreign citizen is allowed to hold any job abroad without obtaining work permit. The Central Investigation Bureau said many unemployed youths, women and girls were being trafficked to Gulf countries in the guise of foreign employment, marriage and studies. Human traffickers have been capitalising on lack of employment opportunities, low education level and poverty to lure their victims, according to CIB.