Members doubled in 10 months
DRI orders fixed assets be frozen
Useful Links
» A new way to read online, exact replica of your daily and magazine
» For all you tweety fans out there!
» Allows you to find only those news from any date you choose!
» Search any news/ articles by author/ category/ date/ keyword
KATHMANDU, JUN 04 - Unity Life International (ULI) aggressively expanded its member base during the current fiscal year 2009/10, adding more than double new members within 10 months against the entire members last year 2008/09.
An initial investigation of the Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI) on the ULI multi-billion rupee scam has found that ULI membership went up by 219,984 this fiscal alone, while its membership base was just 104,301 until the end of last fiscal year. This figure matches with the membership figure provided by ULI itself to the DRI.
However, the number of members varies brochures, details of ULI insurance customers and in ULI servers, Mahesh Dahal, the DRI director general told a press meet here on Thursday.
However, very few members benefited from the scheme, with only 58,000 out of the 366,344 members identified in the ULI’s server getting commissions.
The company collected US$ 53.20 million (Rs. 3.99 billion) from 366,342 members, but distributed US$20.96 million (Rs.1.57 billion) as commission until May 1, according to the ULI server.
The DRI found US$ 2.36 million deposited in Fina World Multi-Purpose Cooperative for payment as commission, but the amount has not been utilised.
According to Nepal Rastra Bank, more than RS. 230 million has been deposited in different commercial banks.
Three weeks after the government initiated action against ULI, the DRI managed to get hold of all the three servers of the ULI computer network.
“W now have access to all ULI servers,” said Dahal.
The DRI investigation has revealed that ULI has fixed assets such as plots of land, buildings and other property in its name in different parts of the country.
“The DRI has already sent letters to all land revenue offices to freeze those assets,” Dahal said.
The investigation also revealed that the domain of the ULI website was registered in the name of its executive director Bishnu Bahadur Chhetri at webworks.com, a company in Pennsylvania, USA.
Chhetri and other promoters of the ULI are still at large, while police have arrested a handful of employees and members.
The DRI also found 22 institutions and companies that had affiliation with ULI. These are department stores, insurance companies, banks, tour and travel agencies, airline agencies, real estate agencies, housing agencies, a soap factory, and those related to health, investment, bio-energy, media and hydropower.
The investigation further revealed that ULI had “special relations” with Fina World Multi-Purpose Cooperatives.
According to Dahal, the DRI has already sealed Fina World Multi-Purpose Cooperatives and Bandikapur Cooperatives — both of which held transactions with ULI.
Posted on: 2010-06-04 09:04
Post Your Comment