Mount Everest Climbers 'Poisoned' By Guides In Insurance Fraud Scheme (kathmandupost.com) 47
schwit1 shares a report from the Kathmandu Post: In Nepal, helicopter rescue on high altitude is, by any measure, a genuine lifesaving operation. At high altitude, where oxygen thins and weather changes without warning, the ability to airlift a stricken trekker to Kathmandu within hours has saved countless lives. But threaded through that legitimate system, exploiting its urgency, its opacity, and its distance from oversight, is one of the most sophisticated insurance fraud networks in the world. Nepal's fake rescue scam is not new. The Kathmandu Post first exposed it in 2018. Months later, the government convened a fact-finding committee, produced a 700-page report, and announced reforms. In February 2019, The Kathmandu Post published a long investigative report. Last year, Nepal Police's Central Investigation Bureau reopened the file, and what they found is that the fraud did not stop -- instead it was growing.
The mechanics of the fake rescue racket are straightforward: stage a medical emergency, call in a helicopter, check a tourist into a hospital, and file an insurance claim that bears little resemblance to what actually happened. But the sophistication lies in how each link in the chain is compensated, and how difficult it is for a foreign insurer -- operating from Australia and the United Kingdom -- to verify events that occurred at 3,000 metres in a remote Himalayan valley. The CIB investigation identifies two primary methods for manufacturing an "emergency." The first involves tourists who simply don't want to walk back. After completing a demanding trek -- an Everest Base Camp trek, for instance, can take up to two weeks on foot -- guides offer an alternative: pretend to be sick, and a helicopter will come. The guide handles the rest. The second method is more troubling. At altitudes above 3,000 meters, mild symptoms of altitude sickness are common. Blood oxygen saturation can drop, hands and feet tingle, headaches develop. In most cases, rest, hydration or a gradual descent is all that is needed. But guides and hotel staff, according to the CIB investigation, have been trained to terrify trekkers at precisely this moment. They tell them they are at risk of dying, that only immediate evacuation will save them. In some cases, investigators found that Diamox (Acetazolamide) tablets, used to prevent altitude sickness, were administered alongside excessive water intake to induce the very symptoms that would justify a rescue call.
In at least one case cited in the investigation, baking powder was mixed into food to make tourists physically unwell. Once a "rescue" is called, the financial choreography begins. A single helicopter carries multiple passengers. But separate, full-price invoices are submitted to each passenger's insurance company, as if each had their own dedicated flight. A $4,000 charter becomes a $12,000 claim. Fake flight manifests and load sheets are fabricated. At the hospital, medical officers prepare discharge summaries using the digital signatures of senior doctors who were never involved in the case. In some cases, these are done without those doctors' knowledge. Fake admission records are created for tourists who were, in some documented instances, drinking beer in the hospital cafeteria at the time they were supposedly receiving treatment. In one case, an office assistant at Shreedhi Hospital admitted that he had provided his own X-ray report taken about a year ago at a different hospital, to be used as a case for treatment of foreign trekkers to claim insurance. The commission structure that holds the network together was described in detail during police interrogations. Hospitals pay 20 to 25 percent of the insurance payment to trekking companies and a further 20 to 25 percent to helicopter rescue operators in exchange for patient referrals. Trekking guides and their companies benefit from inflated invoices. In some cases, tourists themselves are offered cash incentives to participate.
The mechanics of the fake rescue racket are straightforward: stage a medical emergency, call in a helicopter, check a tourist into a hospital, and file an insurance claim that bears little resemblance to what actually happened. But the sophistication lies in how each link in the chain is compensated, and how difficult it is for a foreign insurer -- operating from Australia and the United Kingdom -- to verify events that occurred at 3,000 metres in a remote Himalayan valley. The CIB investigation identifies two primary methods for manufacturing an "emergency." The first involves tourists who simply don't want to walk back. After completing a demanding trek -- an Everest Base Camp trek, for instance, can take up to two weeks on foot -- guides offer an alternative: pretend to be sick, and a helicopter will come. The guide handles the rest. The second method is more troubling. At altitudes above 3,000 meters, mild symptoms of altitude sickness are common. Blood oxygen saturation can drop, hands and feet tingle, headaches develop. In most cases, rest, hydration or a gradual descent is all that is needed. But guides and hotel staff, according to the CIB investigation, have been trained to terrify trekkers at precisely this moment. They tell them they are at risk of dying, that only immediate evacuation will save them. In some cases, investigators found that Diamox (Acetazolamide) tablets, used to prevent altitude sickness, were administered alongside excessive water intake to induce the very symptoms that would justify a rescue call.
In at least one case cited in the investigation, baking powder was mixed into food to make tourists physically unwell. Once a "rescue" is called, the financial choreography begins. A single helicopter carries multiple passengers. But separate, full-price invoices are submitted to each passenger's insurance company, as if each had their own dedicated flight. A $4,000 charter becomes a $12,000 claim. Fake flight manifests and load sheets are fabricated. At the hospital, medical officers prepare discharge summaries using the digital signatures of senior doctors who were never involved in the case. In some cases, these are done without those doctors' knowledge. Fake admission records are created for tourists who were, in some documented instances, drinking beer in the hospital cafeteria at the time they were supposedly receiving treatment. In one case, an office assistant at Shreedhi Hospital admitted that he had provided his own X-ray report taken about a year ago at a different hospital, to be used as a case for treatment of foreign trekkers to claim insurance. The commission structure that holds the network together was described in detail during police interrogations. Hospitals pay 20 to 25 percent of the insurance payment to trekking companies and a further 20 to 25 percent to helicopter rescue operators in exchange for patient referrals. Trekking guides and their companies benefit from inflated invoices. In some cases, tourists themselves are offered cash incentives to participate.
Re:Fuck Big Insurance. (Score:5, Informative)
But you can't nullify the higher rates scammers cause.
Keep Mount Everest a challenge! (Score:5, Funny)
Stop rescuing these people.
Re:Keep Mount Everest a challenge! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they shouldn't have those sherpas either. If you wanna claim you've climbed the everest, you should have to carry your gear, your oxygen, your un-poisoned food. The balooning ego that propelled you there should be all you need to carry it all.
Re:Keep Mount Everest a challenge! (Score:4, Informative)
I think they shouldn't have those sherpas either. If you wanna claim you've climbed the everest, you should have to carry your gear, your oxygen, your un-poisoned food. The balooning ego that propelled you there should be all you need to carry it all.
I think that's more of a mutually agreed thing, since sherpas can easily make $5-10K per client. Sherpas were also mandated by the local government following a rather horrific 2013 season.
As demand for luxury and "supported" climbs increases, the cost for highly experienced Sherpas has increased, contributing to total expedition costs ranging from $40,000 (Nepali-led) to over $100,000 (Western luxury-led).
As always, money can motivate most anyone to walk the walk. That said, I don't agree with "supported" climbs if that's going to eventually morph into sherpa escalator maintainers forced to cheat death on the regular, maintaining the half-million-dollar EverExpress Pass Plus service, sponsored by PeaksRUs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I understand the interaction is voluntary on the part of the sherpas, but your escalator analogy IMO describes the existing situation pretty well already.
It's still people compelled into risking their lives only because someone needs to feel above everyone else in the world. The fact that the escort is obligatory now doesn't really excuse it; it just proves that the sum of the climbers up to that point have been horrendously irresponsible and made it everyone else's problem.
Anyone who claims they need to do
Re: (Score:2)
return to Slashdot being a quality tech site.
Hahaha. Oh, wait, you're serious? Let me laugh even harder. HAHAHA.
The Slashdot Effect. Revisted. (Score:5, Funny)
Hahaha. Oh, wait, you're serious? Let me laugh even harder. HAHAHA.
Ironically that was also the Slashdot community response when listening to victims of The Slashdot Effect brag about how awesome their server infrastructure is/was, five minutes before the post went up on the main page.
And we ALL clicked. And laugh-ranted, in search of a mirror by the time the first frosty piss of a post went up.
Slashdot. Offering quality technical DDoSing and server stress testing since, get the fuck off my lawn.
Re: (Score:2)
...
People are turning down profit for whatever the reward is from an irrelevant, rudderless Slashdot that could make far more than the several million bucks it generated last year. That's not quite as hilariously stupid as Kaplan shutting down fuckedcompany in an age where it's highly relevant, but it's impressively silly.
TBH i have no idea how /. makes any money... i assume it's still around just because it doesn't cost too much to host and run.
(i'm resigned to the fact that it'll prob. be shut down sooner or later...)
As to the "tech" connection of this story i think it's somewhat relevant from the big systems,security, and fraud pov. Like for the life of slashdot a big chunk of "tech" has been the whole data processing and IT side of enabling business (and government) processes and everything that goes with it. And secu
Re:No victims (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: No victims (Score:1)
Re: No victims (Score:4, Informative)
Because a hospital stay in the U.S. can cost $1 million and you don't want to have to be responsible for that (or sell all your assets and declare bankruptcy) on the off-chance that happens.
Re: No victims (Score:2)
It's travel insurance. Our national health systems only apply when you're in the country
Re: (Score:2)
There are no victims here. I feel zero sympathy for anyone involved with any aspect of this.
Dude... going on an outdoors adventure and being (lightly) poisoned by the guides for medical insurance fraud is pretty messed up.
IDK what area of the world you live in, or what kind of world you want to live in, but fortunately most places in the developed world (and even in most of the developing world) are not like this.
Who is pete6677? (Score:2)
Huh, pete6677 post history is interesting.
Strong anti-censorship streak, sharp anti-left language, distrust of institutions, and a fondness for law-and-order muscle.
So pete6677 could really be a right leaning American who has yet to be fucked by the government.
Or he is a Russian created character carefully crafted to create a straw man that discredits himself in a hope of bringing down all his western ideals.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah well, we can't all be a person who doesn't understand how things work. Kudos to you for being simple minded!
Ban climbing Mt. Everest (Score:1)
Solutions.. (Score:2, Insightful)
1a. Stop offering insurance for those who decide to climb the mountain.
1b. Force anyone that wants to climb the mountain to make a deposit that covers the cost of removing their body, just in case they don't make it.
2. Ban climbing the mountain.
Re:Solutions.. (Score:5, Insightful)
1a. (prohibit insurance) Probably would not pass constitutional examination. That disproportioned affecting the lives of honest people compared to the objectives. The insurance fraud rate is small (3.5% 171 identified cases out of 4782 hospitalisations according to TFA). the proposed change would lead to honest blameless tourists dying because they would not want to afford the needed help in case of actual need.
1b. (body recovering deposit) is already happening, it's a $15,000 fee https://thehimalayantimes.com/... [thehimalayantimes.com]
2 (prohibit trekking in Nepal) is out of the question; it's Nepal's golden goose.
Most fraud cases reported in the summary are paper fraud easy to uncover: duplicated helicopter invoices, fake medical reports. They can be avoided by improving the procedures so fake stuff can't happen. The other part where people get poisoned are harder to prevent, but can be controlled by severe criminal charges against the guides, and stripping licences (to the agencies, to directors)
Re: Solutions.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure why you mention United States here, it's not at all in TFA. I'm only talking about Nepal needing to pass laws that prohibit insurance, which I believe isn't compatible with generic principles that you can't pass laws that cause serious prejudice to everyone just to avoid some small monetary damage.
There is a clear imbalance here between the objectives (avoid a scam estimated to 15 millions dollars over 3 years) and the means (prohibit life-saving insurance to thousand of blameless tourists who need
Re: (Score:2)
1a. (prohibit insurance) Probably would not pass constitutional examination. That disproportioned affecting the lives of honest people compared to the objectives. The insurance fraud rate is small (3.5% 171 identified cases out of 4782 hospitalisations according to TFA).
That's not small. But agreed that it is the wrong solution. The right solution is aggressive enforcement. Require everyone who is transported to a hospital to describe, in their own words, the events leading up to it. Immediately prosecute when fraud is detected. Keep doing this until the fraud stops.
Third world fraud is weak (Score:3, Interesting)
Come to the USA where health insurance fraud has been institutionalized to the tune of hundreds of billons of dollars annually. United Health Corp anyone?
An ambulance trip to an ER in the US can easily cost you the same amount as a heli from Everest base campâ¦thats the fraud.
btw i got my finger stitched up in Lukla at the Swiss clinic couple years back for $50â¦donated much more than that but still stands as the best, least expensive experience in healthcare I've ever hadâ¦in Luklaâ¦Nepal
Journalism (Score:2)
" The Kathmandu Post"
Ah we don't to pay for journalism, says a planet of suckers
Only Morons (Score:1)
Climb Mt. Everest. You aren't a survivor. You aren't a hero. You aren't a success story. You aren't an inspiration. You're a fucking moron who either dies or adds to the massive amount of trash that has accumulated on the mountain. And whoever put baking soda in the food deserves to be hung as a warning to the others.
Re: (Score:2)
Climbing Mt Everest isn't a personal endeavor. It's a fucking selfish action for selfish morons.
For varying values of "Common" (Score:5, Interesting)
I've spent a week at that altitude - with excursions on foot up to around 3800m - with no ill-effects at all. On the other hand, my room mate was barely functional at 3000m.
Another time in the mountains (this time in the Alps) I was hiking while carrying a (lesser) load at around 3880m. There were six of us in that group and two did have serious problems up there, the stupid thing was that they were aware beforehand that they were susceptible - apparently around one third of the population is.
Some people need time to acclimatise to altitude, but I don't understand why people who should know better think that even marching up the foothills is a good idea. In my case I have never been higher than just under 4000m and have never had altitude sickness so I don't know what my limits are. Maybe I should head up Kilimanjaro (just under 5900m) but I think I'll pass, and maybe Everest tourists should be required to walk up Kilimanjaro - or an equivalent - before tackling the big one.
Re: (Score:2)
I went on a minibus tour in the mountains between Salta and Jujuy, Argentina around 3km, I had no ill-effects.
Bolivia is on my bucket list. La Paz they say you need to adjust for a few days but I am after that slow travel experience anyway.
Re: For varying values of "Common" (Score:3)
Exertion at altitude is even more risky for those carrying the sickle cell trait, particularly common among people of black African descent. It has bitten multiple NFL players who have played in Denver (5,280'/1610m) and had sickling crises/splenic infarction triggered, notably Ryan Clark, who almost died as a result of it in 2007.
Re: (Score:2)
and maybe Everest tourists should be required to walk up Kilimanjaro - or an equivalent - before tackling the big one.
That's the case since last year. Tourists are now required to climb any of the seventy-four 7000m+ summits of Nepal before being issued an Everest permit. https://www.placesnepal.com/bl... [placesnepal.com]
Re: (Score:2)
and maybe Everest tourists should be required to walk up Kilimanjaro - or an equivalent - before tackling the big one.
That's the case since last year. Tourists are now required to climb any of the seventy-four 7000m+ summits of Nepal before being issued an Everest permit. https://www.placesnepal.com/bl... [placesnepal.com]
Interesting. Though i suspect it's more of a tax / to raise revenue by requiring people to spend more $$ in the country than just a safety thing.
(TBH i think the whole Everest thing, especially in its modern form with guides and sherpas carrying everything and the ice fall doctors setting up and maintaining the route is overdone and doesn't really PROVE much anymore)
Re: (Score:2)
(TBH i think the whole Everest thing, especially in its modern form with guides and sherpas carrying everything and the ice fall doctors setting up and maintaining the route is overdone and doesn't really PROVE much anymore)
I really would be much more impressed by someone who volunteered 3 months alongside the sherpas (keeping the route, carrying the stuff for toursist) rather than doing one climbing for internet points.
Re: (Score:2)
Even Kilimanjaro isn't a big enough peak IMO. I have climbed numerous mountains including successfully climbing Kilimanjaro and I still wouldn't attempt Everest. Most people have no idea what the lack of oxygen does to the body and how it effects decision making. I didn't take any supplements (Diamox) when climbing and when at sea level my resting heart rate (RHR) is 54 bpm. When I was at Barafu camp (4600m) before pushing for the summit my RHR was 86 bpm. So imagine somebody not as physically fit as m
Re: (Score:2)
My Kilimanjaro suggestion was aimed at people who had always planned to turn back long before getting anywhere near the top, and I felt the need to point out that 3000m is not a big deal for most people.
I'm not a mountain climber, although I'll walk or ski at those altitudes without a second thought, although ski touring (walking uphill through deep snow with "skins" on my skis) is not something I'm planning to do again at my age.
Just build a staircase already. (Score:2)
I was into climbing and moutaineering in my teens. I clearly remember when climbing an 8k mountain actually meant something and doing it proved you were an experienced hardcore expedition climber. Everest today is such a joke and farce that I'd be embarrassed to brag of even attempt a summit. They should just install a Via Ferratta, stairs and bridges all the way to the summit and be done with it. That would actually make sense, given the state of things we've reached. They have actual traffic effing jams a
Re: (Score:2)
They should just install a Via Ferratta, stairs and bridges all the way to the summit and be done with it.
Simpsons Did It! Simpsons Did it!
There's apparently a new path bypassing the Khumbu Icefall that is opening this year (2026) and it indeed includes a 270 step via ferratta.
So not all the way to the top, but between Base Camp and Camp 1 i guess.
https://theworld.org/stories/2... [theworld.org]
Old (Score:2)
Mt. Everest is so passé. Free-dive The Mariana Trench if you're tough,
Nightmare (Score:1)
Literally everything about this forsaken mountain and the filthy-rich-tourist industry surrounding it seems to be a complete nightmare, for absolutely everyone involved.