The Bhutanese Leading the way.
More details have emerged in the Yarab Consultancy case, in which 49 people were reportedly cheated out of Nu 38 million (mn) between September 2023 and July 2025.
The Royal Bhutan Police (RBP) received the first complaint on 9th July 2025, from a participant in a Canadian work program. On the same day, the Department of Law and Order reported three victims who had returned from Vietnam after being promised placements in Cyprus. Additional complaints were filed on 15th July and 19th July by other members of the Canada group.
Another complaint came on 4th August from 7 members of the Vietnam group, and another group on 21st October 2025 from the UK and Czech Republic work program with the final complaint coming on 9th December 2025 from the remainder of the Canada group.
The number of victims is 25 from the Canada group, 12 from the Vietnam group supposed to go to Cyprus, 7 from the UK group and 5 from the Czech Republic group.
The main accused in the case are Yarab CEO Thinlay Dorjee, responsible for the UK and Canada groups, and Yarab Director Gembo Tashi and his partner Rinchen, who handled the Vietnam and Czech Republic groups.
According to the RBP, Nu 9.8 mn was deposited into the Yarab company account, Nu 19.7 mn into Thinlay Dorjee’s personal account, Nu 6.58 mn into Gembo Tashi’s account, and Nu 2.4 mn into Rinchen’s account.
UK Group
The first group was the UK group of seven Bhutanese who were told they will get caregiver jobs in the UK.
They were assured of care work placement with the Cedar Foundation in the UK, with promise to get the visa in 6 to 8 months’ time. They applied for the initial registration with Yarab Consultancy in Thimphu on 18th September 2023
One of the victims, Karma, said that four of the seven had nursing backgrounds while three were from general backgrounds. They first attended a Zoom interview, where only two voices were heard from the other side, of which one sounded Indian and the other foreign. They were told they ‘got through’ and paid Nu 200,000 , Nu 500,000 and Nu 600,000 plus in installments, totalling to Nu 1.397 mn each.
The group received their offer letter on 14th December 2023 and VFS appointment letter for biometrics on 20th June 2024 with defaulted dates which was found to be fabricated. Thinlay Dorjee, CEO of Yarab, claimed he had been scammed by the recruiting company, which allegedly caused the collapse of their visas in September 2024.
As a second option, Thinlay promised to send them to Canada saying an MoU has been signed with a partner. To appease their frustration over their lost money, Thinlay asked his counterpart Jean Felix to to send them emails individually claiming that he got full receipt of their payments, which later proved false. The employment letters emailed on 4th October 2024 contained discrepancies, including varying job titles and pay scales, but this attempt also failed.
For a third attempt, Thinlay said he and his team had a deal with a company called Shergill Immigration. Despite pleas to withdraw, he promised the group would depart by the second week of January 2025, which also did not materialize. On 2nd March 2025, a virtual meeting resulted in a formal undertaking to refund the Nu 1.397 million by 3rd April 2025. There was no refund.
On 26th April, Thinlay Dorjee showed them their passports, claiming the Canada visa were ready, and he asked them to prepare for flight departure. He sent them a PDF copy of the visa via WhatsApp. However, he refused to hand over the physical passports, citing he can’t take the risk of sending the passports to them. They asked him to check the genuineness of the visa with the Canada Embassy in Delhi, but they were told the embassy does not entertain visa fact checking.
On 8th May 2025, a person named Vishal from Shergill contacted them saying they have to pay an additional Nu 800,000 to Nu 900,000 each, threatening visa cancellation.
On 12th May, the group checked with the Bhutan Canada Foundation that checked with the Canada High Commission in Delhi and they received a letter saying their visas are fake. Thinlay claimed that he had been scammed again. The group asked for the refund in installments and Thinley only paid around Nu 300,000 each with Nu 50,000 installments per person.
Karma said that everyone in the group had taken loans to pay the Nu 1.397 mn each and everyone is suffering financially from being scammed.
Karma said they were lucky to even get back Nu 300,000 as they were the first group, and Thinlay probably did not want them to look for and alert the other groups being processed.
Canada Group
Dolma, a victim from the separate Canada group of 25 people, said she heard of the scheme from her friend’s brother who convinced her to join saying she can use this job to help cover family expenses as her kids are in college. She and other group members paid Nu 721,000 each, while two couples paid Nu 980,000 each.
In November 2023, they flew to Delhi for the biometrics, but here again, Thinlay made a lot of excuses and the visas were never coming. Being doubtful, Dolma checked the offer letter online and it was coming up as a fake. The group kept trying to contact Thinlay, but he only gave excuses. Finally, on April 2025, he claimed to the group that he had been scammed by his Indian partners.
Dolma said that 7 or 8 of them withdrew, while 14 stayed, agreeing to Thinlay’s European placement plan. Again, nothing came of it and nobody from the group got their money.
Dolma said she is under a lot of pressure these days as she sold Nu 321,000 worth of her gold jewelry and borrowed Nu 400,000 from her sisters, and now unable to pay back the money, there is a lot of stress and tension in her family. She said she even left a contract job, and now with the long wait, she is jobless and her kids’ college fees are high while her husband only holds a moderately paying government job with his own loans to pay.
Vietnam Group
In the case of this group, the promise was to get 12 of them work in Cyprus, and the two involved people are Yarab Director Gembo Tashi and his partner Rinchen Dorji.
Some of the group members said that their engagement with Yarab started in August 2024 to travel to Cyprus for a work program by December 2024 for Nu 650,000 with Nu 50,000 as upfront payment, and the rest after visa approval.
However, on 8th December 2024, Gembo asked them to deposit Nu 200,000 each as their visas had arrived, and a week later another Nu 140,000 for air tickets to Cyprus.
Shortly after, the consultancy claimed to have been scammed, and though they wanted to withdraw, they were offered alternative destinations with the final one being Austria.
Despite offer letters from the Medical University of Vienna in February 2025 and biometric appointments in Kolkata, the visas never came, and they were told they are applying for Serbia.
In 16th May 2025 they were told they got visas for Vietnam where they would work in a packaging unit for Nu 50,000 a month with free accommodation and food, and were asked to pay another Nu 80,000 to Nu 160,000 each. The plan was to work for three months in Vietnam and then head to Serbia.
On 25 May, they arrived in Vietnam only to realize the work was not packaging but tailoring for which they were only paid Nu 16,000.
They also found they did not have a work visa but a tourist visa, which meant they are not allowed to work. They had no work and they said Gembo and Rinchen offered no solutions despite follow ups, and even said sending them to Serbia is impossible instead offering Armenia and Montenegro.
Some of them wanted to come back to Bhutan, but they were told their application for Serbia had already been submitted and they would not get their money back.
They also demanded passports which they refused to give, and one of the victims said that on 25th June, Rinchen visited their apartment and took their passports in anger, but they chased him down and got back the passports.
They said the entire ordeal had a major impact on their mental health, especially as they had taken out loans to cover the expenses. They said communication was minimal with calls often going unanswered.
The situation escalated when one of the group members, who was a lady, did a suicide attempt due to stress. She was admitted to the hospital. Her medical expenses were USD 600 but when Gembo was approached for help with the hospital bill, he said it was ‘not his headache’ as the victim had self-harmed.
Exhausting the money they brought from Bhutan and with no work and money, many of the group members had to request for relatives to send them money to come back to Bhutan. They came back and filed a complaint saying they had been defrauded by Yarab and Gembo and Rinchen and accused them of false promise, breach of contract and financial exploitation.
One of the victims in this group, who did not want to be named, said, “If I ever meet Gembo or Rinchen, I would not mind chopping them both up with a patang and going behind bars. I have lost everything due to them.”
He said he paid Nu 992,00 for him and his wife. He gave up his restaurant business in Thimphu in 2024 and took a loan of Nu 1.7 mn to prepare for this trip including living expenses, thinking the visa was coming through.
However, while the time and expenses kept adding up, he said the visas never came through and he had to borrow money to come back. He said the matters became so tough that in the end, they did not even have food to eat while coming back.
He said due to his economic situation, one of his children lives with his sister in Paro while other two are in Samtse with his wife’s parents, as he cannot afford to support them in Thimphu. He said all he has is a rented apartment in Thimphu and some basic furniture.
The victim said he is trying to build his life back, but he first has a heavy debt to clear.
Czech Group
A victim from the Czech group, who also did not want to be named, said she paid Gembo and Rinchen Nu 300,000 for work there, but the visa and work never came through. She said she is from a humble background and had borrowed the money and is now having tough time paying it back. She said the situation is the same for the other group members.
The police contacted Thinlay, Gembo, and Rinchen, all of whom claimed they had been scammed multiple times by their Indian partners against whom they filed complaints and cases. The authorities said that if this were true, they should return to Bhutan and present their case, but all three have refused fearing arrest. The police also urged them to refund the victims, which they have not done yet. An Interpol notice has now been issued against them.
