Alert! Hyderabad Police detected ‘Chinese link’ in instant loan app that killed three people
Hyderabad: Three people in Hyderabad city have been driven to suicide after taking loans from unauthorised Instant loan applications. The City police said that “Unauthorised lenders have harassed, threatened and shamed the online borrowers and links of online Instant loan applications found to the Chinese nationals and Jakarta, Indonesia.”
On the online illegal activities – Police added that “we have received a total of over 60 complaints of online harassment against app-based lenders.”
According to the city police – Most of these phone apps were not approved by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The police commissioner of Cyberabad said “The companies have two nodal accounts — one pools up the amount from NBFCs and disburses 75-80 per cent of loan amount by deducting various charges like processing fees, GST, etc. The loan amount paid by the customers comes to the other nodal account, which in turn, pays it to the NBFCs,”
According to the police, the rate of interest they charge is as high as 100 percent in some cases. It was mostly seen that the payment was done using online wallets, gateways etc. There are at least 80 such apps in use and available on the Google Play Store.
A few of the apps named by the police include Cash Mama, Loan Zone, Dhana Dhan, Cash Era, Cash Lion, Mastermelon, Lucky Wallet and Coco Cash.
Commissioner of Police Anjani Kumar said “The call centres in Hyderabad and Gurugram were being run on behalf of four companies — Liufang Technologies Pvt Ltd, Hotful Technologies Pvt Ltd, Pinprint Technologies and Nabloom Technologies Pvt. Ltd — registered in Bengaluru.”
“The callers took instructions from their heads in Indonesia. The entire operation of these loan apps appears to be run with Chinese nationals at the helm… The raid in Gurugram led us to a copy of a Chinese national’s passport,” Kumar added.
“According to our information, a Chinese national had come to Hyderabad two-three months ago, set up everything and left. This foreign links issue is a matter of investigation,” he said.
Commissionerates of Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda have conducted raids at call centres in the city as well as in Haryana’s Gurugram, where hundreds of employees were assigned the task of calling up clients, harassing them for not repaying the amount, shaming them online, and even threatening them, the police said at a press conference.
The Hyderabad Police took 11 people into custody following the raids, while 700 laptops, servers and computer systems were seized.
According to the police record – more than 50 complaints were registered with the Rachakonda commissionerate, and at least nine under Hyderabad Police Commissionerate limits.
The Cyber Crime Police Station is also part of the probe, and has registered 16 FIRs.
The Cyberabad Police registered seven cases and arrested six persons, including directors of two of the companies operating these apps.
_Vinayak.Barot
