Baking Soda, Fake Rescues, and a $20 Million Scam on Everest.

The scheme was elegant in its simplicity. Guides working with trekking agencies added baking soda to climbers' food — typically into dal, soup, or tea. At altitude, where the body is already under stress, the sodium bicarbonate caused severe gastrointestinal distress: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. Symptoms that are nearly impossible to distinguish from altitude sickness.

Some guides went further. They administered excessive doses of Diamox (acetazolamide, an altitude sickness medication) along with abnormally large amounts of water, inducing genuine altitude sickness symptoms in otherwise healthy climbers.

Once the climber was incapacitated, the guide would radio for an emergency helicopter evacuation. The climber, sick and frightened at 5,000 meters above sea level, was in no position to refuse.

In other cases, the approach was simpler. Guides would convince tired trekkers — people who had been walking for days and didn't want to walk back — to simply fake illness. The guide handled the rest.

The helicopter ride was only the beginning. Once airborne, the fraud machine kicked into gear.

Flight manifests were fabricated. A single helicopter carrying multiple passengers would be billed as separate individual evacuations. Medical reports were falsified by complicit hospitals. A charter that cost $3,800 would be inflated to nearly $11,400 — and sometimes more.

The insurance claims went to international insurers who had sold travel and evacuation policies to the climbers. Nepal's Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) estimates the total fraud at $19.69 million between 2022 and 2025.

Three hospitals were part of the chain. Era International Hospital received deposits of more than $15.87 million linked to these activities. Shreedhi International Hospital received over $1.22 million. Swacon International Hospital was also implicated.

The proceeds were divided among guides, trekking agency owners, helicopter operators, and hospital staff — a complete ecosystem of fraud.

This is not a new discovery. The Kathmandu Post first exposed the fake rescue scam in 2018. AFP reporter Annabel Symington published a detailed investigation the same year documenting systematic cooperation between guide companies, helicopter services, and hospitals.

In 2018, Traveller Assist — an international travel assistance firm — estimated that 35% of the 1,600 helicopter rescues carried out in Nepal that year were fraudulent, costing insurers up to $4 million.

The government responded. A fact-finding committee spent months investigating 10 helicopter companies, 6 hospitals, and 36 travel and trekking agencies. They produced a 700-page report documenting widespread fraud. The report was submitted to Tourism Minister Rabindra Adhikari.

Then two things happened.

First, instead of acting on the report, the government investigated the whistleblower. Traveller Assist was accused of "harassing Nepali companies."

Second, on February 27, 2019, Tourism Minister Rabindra Adhikari died in a helicopter crash while returning from Pathibhara Devi Temple. With him went the political will to act on the fraud file. The case was closed.

On September 26, 2025, a citizen group called Deshbhakta Gen Z filed a fresh complaint with the CIB. The bureau reopened files that had gone cold for years.

What followed was a thorough investigation. On January 25, 2026, the CIB arrested six individuals from Mountain Rescue Service, Nepal Charter Service, and Everest Experience & Assistance. More arrests followed. By March 2026, the CIB had produced a 1,243-page investigation report and charged 32 individuals with organized crime and fraud.

Nine have been arrested. Twenty-three are absconding.

Among those charged are operators from three helicopter companies — Mountain Helicopters, Manang Air (rebranded as Basecamp Helicopters), and Altitude Air — along with physicians and administrators from three hospitals.

Climbing permits for Everest now cost $15,000 per person (up from $11,000). In 2024 alone, climbing fees brought in $5.92 million, with Everest accounting for $4.52 million — 77% of Nepal's total mountaineering permit revenue. The broader trekking and tourism industry supports over a million jobs.

The scam threatens all of this. International insurers are already withdrawing coverage for trekking in Nepal. Without insurance, climbers won't come. Without climbers, Nepal's mountain economy collapses.