Agni Air promoter detained

KATHMANDU: Police today arrested builder and Agni Air promoter Sudhir Basnet on charges of fraud.

“We have arrested Basnet from Tinkune in Kathmandu on complaints from his nine clients, whom he promised flats in the apartments being promoted by him,” confirmed a police officer from Metropolitan Police Crime Division, Hanuman Dhoka. Basnet, who had promised flats to around 1,000 people in Oriental Apartments and Eastern Apartments, was unable to deliver due to slowdown in housing business and lack of cash flow to complete construction of the apartments.

Basnet, who had also been blacklisted by the Credit Information Bureau, as he was unable to pay loan to the banks, also has to pay over billions to Oriental Cooperatives’ depositors, who have been making rounds of his office for the last couple of months. He had invested depositors’ money from Oriental Cooperatives in the housing projects against the banking regulation laid down by cooperatives and the central bank.

Three banks and financial institutions yesterday put up Agni Air for auction after the airlines failed to meet the loan repayment deadline of December-end. They issued a seven-day auction notice yesterday for the sale of Agni Air’s five aircraft — three Jetstream 41 and two Dornier planes — their spare parts and land in Bhaktapur.