KATHMANDU: The Patan High Court has upheld a district court ruling sentencing a Chinese national to five years in prison for his role in the illegal trafficking of a tiger skin, court officials said.

A joint bench of High Court judges Rajukumar Khatiwada and Deepak Khanal affirmed the conviction of Ma Jingbin, a Chinese citizen who had been working as a hotel manager in Kathmandu. In addition to the prison term, the court ordered Ma to pay a fine of 1,000 Nepali rupees.

However, the court overturned the convictions of three other Chinese nationals charged in the same case — Zhao Pengcheng, Niu Yuliang and Peng Hui — acquitting them of all charges.

The case stems from a police raid conducted on the night of 2021, at the Jianghu Kezhan Hotel in Kathmandu Metropolitan City–17, Jyatha. Police detained four Chinese nationals after finding them gambling in Room 201. During a subsequent search of Room 203, officers discovered a tiger skin measuring approximately 10 feet in length from head to tail.

Authorities also seized 900 beads of buddhachitta, 27 kilograms of rudraksha seeds, 20 pieces resembling musk pods, 889,155 Nepalese rupees in cash, and a large number of mobile phones and ATM cards from the hotel.

According to a forensic report by the National Trust for Nature Conservation, the recovered skin was confirmed to be that of a Bengal tiger. The report further stated that the skin matched a tiger identified as “CNP-FT54,” which had been repeatedly captured on camera traps between 2015 and 2017 in the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park, specifically the Bhandara area.

Wildlife trafficking remains a serious crime in Nepal, which is home to endangered species protected under both national law and international conservation agreements.