Kuala Lampur, April 2 --  

KATHMANDU, April 2 - Nepal has charged 32 people over a multi-million-dollar insurance scam involving fake helicopter rescues of trekkers, police said today, a long-running racket that has cast a shadow over the country's vital tourism industry.

The Himalayan nation attracts thousands of trekkers each year, many walking remote high-altitude trails where emergency airlifts are common and often costly.

But investigators say some operators have for years orchestrated fraudulent evacuations to cash in on insurance payouts.

Police say they uncovered cases in which multiple insurance claims were filed for a single rescue, chartered flights were falsely billed as emergency evacuations and private hospitals iss...