Nepal Investment Mega Bank CEO Jyotiprakash Pandey Arrested
Kathmandu. Nepal Investment Mega Bank Limited Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jyotiprakash Pandey has been arrested. He has been arrested with the help of the District Police Office, Sarlahi, at the request of the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) on charges of fraud and criminal breach of trust.
Police said that the 63-year-old Pandey was taken into custody around 8 PM on Tuesday night during a vehicle check on the Madan Bhandari Highway in Baspark, Kamalamai Municipality-6, Sarlahi, while he was trying to flee with his mobile phone switched off.
Preliminary police investigation shows that Pandey acted dishonestly during the management of the assets of 'Smart Telecom Pvt. Ltd.', whose license was automatically canceled from April 16, 2023, due to non-renewal.
Although, as per regulations, all assets, infrastructure, and network of Smart Telecom should be under the control of the Nepal Telecommunications Authority, Pandey, who is also the chairman of the Loan Recovery Committee (LRC), appears to have acted with malicious intent in the auction process with the objective of severing the rights of the Government of Nepal.
In addition, an investigation is underway into a case of fraud amounting to 400 million rupees by Nepal Investment Mega Bank when it issued an auction notice on September 19, 2025. The notice stipulated that the auction bidders would have to pay an additional 400 million rupees for house rent and electricity bills that should have been paid to the owners of the houses where the auctioned equipment was installed.
Although the bank received the amount, Pandey is accused of fraud and criminal breach of trust by keeping the rent and electricity bills meant for the house owners with itself and not paying them to date.
The Bureau has initiated further legal proceedings and investigation against the arrested Pandey under the Muluki Criminal Code, 2017. Police Spokesperson and Senior Superintendent of Police Shivkumar Shrestha informed that the police have taken seriously the auction conducted by the bank on the assets of Smart Telecom, which had already been canceled, and the financial misappropriation involved in it.
This specific news has been automatically translated by AI. As a result, there may be some inaccuracies or language errors.
