Dr. Choje Akong Tulku Rinpoche, aged 73, was stabbed to death in Chengdu, a city in southwest China, according to police reports. His driver and his nephew who were accompanying him were also killed.
Akong was well-known as the co-founder of Europe's first Tibetan Buddhist monastery, the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery in Dumfries and Galloway near the English-Scottish border in 1967.
His younger brother, Lama Yeshe Rinpoche, said in a Tuesday statement on the monastery's website that Akong had been killed in China, but that he had no other news until the results of the post-mortem.
Police in Chendgu confirmed the death of all three men and said "the deaths resulted from a financial quarrel."
Raw Story reports that a verified police social media account said that "three Tibetan men visited a house where the trio were staying and stabbed them to death in an argument over money."
Police told AFP on Wednesday that the three suspects were in custody.