Cross-border team documents surveillance targeting Tibetans in Nepal

By Aniruddha Ghosal, Dake Kang and David Goldman

The number of Tibetans fleeing China for Nepal has plummeted in recent years — but how and why remained a mystery.

An AP investigation uncovered that Chinese surveillance technology has been embedded into Nepal’s policing systems, enabling a sweeping monitoring network. The infrastructure is powered by U.S.-developed tools now used to track stateless Tibetans.

The cross-border team drew on thousands of documents, deep sourcing and field reporting to reveal how surveillance infrastructure is reshaping the lives of marginalized communities — and the human toll that comes with it.