methar wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2018 4:26 am
Found this on the internet and from the Nepal's "Economic National Daily" newspaper dated June 06, 2016.
It's about Kyabgon Phakchok Rinpoche and his father-in-law Lodi Gyari Rinpoche.
"Reports of Lodi Gyari and his son-in-law’s alleged money laundering have captured the media’s interest
On June 3, 2016, news broke that one of the people close to His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been arrested on suspicions of money laundering.
Lodi Gyari Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama’s former Special Envoy to Washington has a history of questionable financial dealings.
As anyone can clearly see, these are not minor accusations on the level of a teenager robbing a mom-and-pop store in Dharamsala. They are sophisticated schemes involving connections, power and large sums of money…and these are just the scandals that we know of.
A large portion of this US funding has come not only from the American government but from private donors, channeled through organisations such as the aforementioned International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). It so happens that the ICT’s previous director was Lodi Gyari Rinpoche whose son-in-law, Phakchok Rinpoche, is implicated in the latest money laundering scandal to hit the Tibetan leadership.
From 1999 to 2014, Lodi Gyari was director of the ICT. To this day, ICT remains one of the largest Tibetan non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the world, and it certainly the top-funded in the USA. Lodi Gyari’s role as director gave him access to millions of dollars in donations as well as connections to wealthy Tibetan supporters in the United States. When he was the Dalai Lama’s Special Envoy to Washington, DC, his connections in Dharamsala also gave him the uncontested access to money-making opportunities for himself and his relatives. It would seem that Phakchok Rinpoche has been one such beneficiary.
Messages have been circulated on social media about the involvement of Lodi Gyari Rinpoche’s son-in-law in the latest financial scandal to hit the Tibetan establishment. Lodi Gyari is the Dalai Lama’s former Special Envoy to Washington and comes from a wealthy, powerful Tibetan family. He has very close links to the Dalai Lama.
Phakchok Rinpoche, whose real name is Tenzin Jigmey Drakpa, is married to Lodi Gyari’s daughter. He holds a number of positions, including the abbotship of Ka-Nying Shedrup Ling Monastery in Nepal and President of Rangjung Yeshe Shenpen Nepal, an NGO. From Phakchok Rinpoche’s various bank accounts, Nepali authorities recently seized NPR15 crores (approx. US$1.4mil). This followed their previous seizure of US$375,000, an act which had alerted them to the even larger sums of money he had been receiving. In this case, the US$375,000 had been sent from the USA to his bank accounts, on the pretext of raising funds for victims of the 2015 Nepali earthquake.
Phakchok Rinpoche, Lodi Gyari’s son-in-law, is suspected of being involved in money laundering.
It requires an active imagination to conjure up reasons why Lodi Gyari and Phachok Rinpoche would need to fatten their wallets. It is well-known in the Tibetan community that the Gyari family is extremely wealthy and powerful, and have been so even when they were back in Tibet.
In this case, Lodi Gyari and Phakchok Rinpoche have even abused the goodwill of the international community, raising funds from Western donors for earthquake victims, when the funds never made it to the intended recipients.
Nepali media coverage of this financial scandal, which involves Lodi Gyari Rinpoche’s son-in-law, Phachok Rinpoche being accused of being involved in money laundering."
I can't find a follow up story.