Wait till you read about this scam on the roof of the world
Climbing
Mt. Everest, who honestly believes that it’s necessary to be rescued by a helicopter for a common cold? Or thinks that getting on a helicopter is safer than walking to a lower altitude? I found this hard to get my head around
It started with rumours and numbers that didn’t add up. It led to hours scanning reviews on TripAdvisor and weeks hiking around Mount Everest. But when I started looking into insurance fraud linked to helicopter rescues in Nepal, I didn’t think it would end with a government probe and an ultimatum from global insurers that could be a death knell for the Himalayan nation’s vital tourism industry.
Hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to Nepal each year, drawn by the Himalayas. The scam that I uncovered affects them all: huge numbers of trekkers are being pressured into expensive helicopter rescues that they don’t need so that a coterie of middlemen can cash in on the insurance payout. Some are even being made deliberately ill for the scammers’ profit.
When I first arrived in Kathmandu in November 2016 to head up the Nepal bureau, I made it my business to get to know as many people as possible linked to the lucrative Everest industry, which nets the impoverished country millions of dollars a year. The spring climbing season, when hundreds of mountaineers gather at the foot of Everest with their sights set on reaching its 8,848 metre summit, is our busiest time in the bureau. Each year records are broken as men and women push themselves to the limits of human endurance. Many fail. Some pay the ultimate price, losing their lives on the flanks of the world’s highest peak.
In many ways the Everest scam represents the worst of humankind: greed, corruption, and man’s desire to control and conquer Mother Nature.
The helicopter rescue scam is probably the most brazen example of fraud and corruption linked to the industry. And for me, it has come to typify Nepal’s mercenary attitude towards its greatest attraction, Everest.
Not long after I arrived in Nepal I started hearing rumours of middlemen profiting from the insurance payouts linked to unnecessary helicopter rescues of tourists. But it was two stats that initially spurred my investigation: first, that 20 new Airbus B2 and B3 choppers had been delivered to Nepal in five years. And second, that private helicopters in Nepal wrack up more flying hours per year than anywhere else in the world. I started digging.
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Many of the people I first spoke to tried to tell me that the fraud was an old problem. That type of reaction was something I frequently came up against during my investigation as people tried to dismiss my questions, telling me that I didn’t understand Nepal. But being brushed off like that is a red flag to most journalists. I soon realised that the scam had evolved, becoming harder to prove — and even more lucrative — in the process.
Rewind four years. There were a handful of helicopter operators and their brokers charging insurers exorbitant and inconsistent rates for chopper rescues. I saw the invoices: a rescue from near Everest billed at $10,000 (Dh36,730) and then a few days later a similar rescue billed at $12,000 (Dh44,077). Another might come in at a bargain $6,000 (22,038). The true cost of the flight was closer to $4,000 (Dh14,692) but the insurance companies were coughing up and the difference was being spread between the helicopter company, trekking guide and the broker.
As a result, prices came down, so the insurers were happy. So were shrewd brokers who had priced in a per flight cut for themselves.
And that’s where the new scam took off. Instead of charging crazy rates for a few flights, these brokers pushed guides to have as many people as possible rescued (each trekker’s insurance company would be billed for the full flight). In return, they would get a cut.
Most trekking guides make Rs2,500 per day (Dh80) during the two short trekking seasons, but can make up to $500 (Dh1,836) in kickbacks from a single rescue. The number of rescues happening in Nepal’s Himalayas have soared.
Precise numbers are hard to come by. The 10 private helicopters companies were unwilling or unable to give me the details of how many rescue flights they carry out each year. A few of them told me that if their competitors knew how many rescues they were doing, they would be targeted and undercut. So, I turned to TripAdvisor.
I spent hours scouring reviews of Nepal-based trekking companies for references to helicopter rescues and messaging the review writers.
While there were a few angry reviews by people who felt that they had been pressured into a rescue and suspected a scam, the vast majority of people were full of praise for their guide who organised a chopper to swoop in and save them from a bout of the squits at Everest’s base camp.
I found this naivety quite difficult to get my head around. Who honestly believes that it’s necessary to be rescued by a helicopter for a common cold? Or thinks that getting on a helicopter is safer than walking to a lower altitude? Walking down is the standard medical advice if you start experiencing first symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness, like headaches, shortness of breath, loss of appetite, nausea. The symptoms disappear as if by magic the lower you get. Eight percent of tourists trekking in the Everest region this spring were rescued by helicopter – that’s up to 17 flights per day. Everest’s Khumbu Valley has become a helicopter highway.
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After months of interviews in Kathmandu, I laced up my hiking boots and headed to the Everest region. Me and AFP’s Nepal photographer Prakash Mathema were aiming for Everest base camp – an eight-day trek from Lukla, a small town with an even smaller airstrip that serves as the gateway to Mount Everest.
A few days in, we arrived in the small village of Mongla at lunchtime. Within moments of ordering tea, we heard a helicopter was on its way to rescue a trekker. I went to find her.
Sunita, a student nurse from London, was tired. She was feeling nauseous. Climbing the steep slope to Mongla had just been too much, she said. She wanted to go home. Why not walk back or hire a pony for the return journey, I asked. No, she wanted a helicopter and her guide had assured her she could get one through her travel insurance.
As we continued to talk, I could see her guide becoming visibly agitated by my questions. He interrupted on a few occasions, taking her outside to talk away from me. She came back more convinced that a helicopter was needed.
Then she said something that set off the alarm bells: she admitted that she had only brought travel insurance the previous day.