A 31-year-old former monk travels to France and then vanishes without a trace. After six months of silence, his mother has exhausted all hope and performed his post-death rituals.
The Royal Bhutanese Embassy in Brussels has filed a missing persons report with the French Police in Paris Ugyen Dorji.
For six months, a family in Bhutan has been searching for 31- year-old former monk, Thinley Wangchuk, who travelled to France last year and went missing.
His phone went silent. His whereabouts became unknown. His mother, having exhausted every avenue of inquiry, has since performed the post-death rituals.
She does not know if her son is dead or alive.
Sources say the case may be linked to an alleged trafficking network moving Bhutanese monks to France through irregular channels, in some instances using false identities.
The monk, who had been residing at a monastery in Thimphu before his departure, applied for a French Schengen tourist visa through the Visa Facilitation Service (VFS) Global application centre in Thimphu on September 9, 2025.
The visa was granted on September 25.
A standard Schengen tourist visa permits a maximum stay of 90 days within any 180-day period.
The monk’s mother said family members were unaware of the full details of his travel arrangements, as they live in a village and the plans had already been made by the time he told them he was leaving.
They had initially assumed he was travelling to destinations more commonly visited by Bhutanese nationals – Taiwan, Mysore or Australia.
They only learnt later that he had gone to France. To fund the trip, the monk sold his car and personal belongings and borrowed Nu 60,000 from his mother and Nu 100,000 from a friend.
The former monk also has a wife and a two-year-old child. His wife works as a daily wage earner.
The mother said the family remained in contact with him after he arrived in France.
He made a video call showing himself being picked up from the airport.
For the first three months, he appeared to be settling in, staying with the person who had received him. Then his tone changed. He began expressing distress, saying he was unhappy and wanted to return home.
When the family urged him to come back, he said he did not have enough money for the journey.
He later asked for around Nu 50,000 to travel by train; the family advised him to fly instead and began preparing to send Nu 150,000.
The money transfer was delayed due to a core banking system outage at the Bank of Bhutan on February 12 and 13.
When his mother went to complete the transaction on February 16, she could not reach him.
When contact was briefly re-established, he told her that even if money arrived, he might not be able to return.
After that, he went silent entirely. The family filed a missing persons complaint with assistance from Bhutanese nationals living in France and informed the French Embassy.
The Royal Bhutanese Embassy in Brussels confirmed it had filed a missing persons report with the French Police in Paris.
The case does not appear to be isolated.
Sources indicate that a monk from Wangdue travelled to France after obtaining a marriage certificate with a Tibetan national and is currently working there as a cook.
A few monks from Pemagatshel also allegedly travelled under similar circumstances.
Sources say the missing monk, who had studied basic Tibetan in Bhutan, was undergoing training in vegetable preparation after his arrival.
With hopes of finding their child fading, the family has already completed the post-death rituals, according to the mother.
However, Bhutanese nationals living in France said they believed the missing monk was still somewhere in the country, noting that details of his disappearance had been circulated in Bhutanese social media groups there. - Kuensel/ANN
