Hong Kong ( CNN ) -- A high-profile monk who played a key role in bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West has been murdered in southwest China , police say . Tarap Shetrup Akong , who has British citizenship , was killed along with his nephew and another man in Sichuan province on Tuesday , police in the provincial capital Chengdu said on their official account on the microblogging site Weibo . Police said that three suspects have been captured , and that the victims were stabbed in a financial dispute . Akong was born in Tibet in 1940 and left for exile in 1959 . He founded a monastery called Samye Ling in a secluded part of Scotland . The victim 's brother said in a statement on the monastery 's website that he had been `` assassinated '' but did not give any further details . Robbie Barnett , a Tibet expert at Columbia University in New York , said that he was known for his social as much as spiritual work . `` The bulk of his life 's work was on providing social welfare to villagers , rural communities , townspeople , nomads and monasteries in Tibet and other countries . '' Barnett said that he had great diplomatic skill and was able to maintain relationships with high-level Chinese officials without compromising his work with Tibetans on the ground . CNN 's Jaime FlorCruz in Beijing contributed reporting .
A high-profile British Tibetan monk and two other men have been killed in China . Police said that three suspects have been captured . The victims were killed over a financial dispute , police added . Victim 's brother says he was `` assassinated ''