After the suicide of five persons, Telangana police had started cracking down on the instant loan app scam. Now as per several reports, the scam has a deeper Chinese link.
The police have taken 5 Chinese nationals into custody and investigations are on to ascertain how China is involved in this scam. The people arrested are Hemanth Kumar Jha, director of Flash Cash Pvt limited, Gurugram, V. Manjunath, HR Manager at Juss IT Technologies Pvt LTD., Bengaluru and Abdul Lauk, Manager/Team leader at TGHY Trust rock Pvt. limited, Bengaluru.
Arrests were made after the suicide of G. Chandra Mohan, aged 38 who took loan of Rs 70,000 from 11 apps. "He repaid Rs 2 lakh to these apps in installments but he was still being harassed for being a defaulter. This drove him to suicide," said P.V. Padmaja, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Balanagar), Cyberabad.
Chandra Mohan committed suicide and as per reports, he was being harassed by the companies. Police in their investigations have found out that some apps are involved in giving loans to people but during the repayment of these loans, they were harassed and blackmailed. These apps are available on Google Play Store.
A man named Hemanth, developed these apps in collaboration with Michael of China. He was running office from Gurugram and collecting database of their customers. Police is also investigating the role of a Bhutan national in India.
In further investigations, it has been revealed that after disbursing loan to customers for seven days, they were divided into different categories. The customers were called for the collection of loans. In the next stage, they were send messages, later on WhatsApp messages were sent and in the end emails were send to these people.
Then, they also called the relatives of the people and started defaming them. "To recover the loan from customers they practiced different methods depending upon the dues. In case of higher dues the treatment was very harsh, threatening and abusive. They also accessed the contacts of relatives and friends of the customers and sent them WhatsApp messages defaming the defaulters," the DCP said.
As per the reports, company was taking 35% rate of interest
per annum and it was imposing huge
penalties on defaulters. The police also found that these apps have tied-up
with Non-Banking Financing Companies (NBFCs). Police said notices will be
issued to all NBFCs. The police have also written to Google to take down the
applications because of their criminal activities.
The modus operandi in this case is not different from other cases cracked by
the police during the last one month.
More than 30 accused, including four Chinese nationals have been arrested by
Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda police, the three commissionerates which
cover Greater Hyderabad.
It was on December 4 that E.S. Yadav (23) of Narsapur in Medak district hanged
himself, unable to bear the harassment by loan apps. He had taken a loan of
around Rs 6,000.
K. Mounika (28), an agriculture extension officer, committed suicide by
consuming poison on December 16. She had taken multiple loans from various apps
to the extent of Rs 2.5 lakh.
On December 17, Sunil, a 29-year-old techie hanged himself in Hyderabad. He had
taken a loan of Rs 70,000 to 80,000 and was asked to return more than Rs 2 lakh
and when he could not repay, the representatives of apps defamed him by sending
messages to all his contacts.
According to Director General of Police M. Mahender Reddy, 50 cases were
registered in connection with the instant loan apps. The first arrests were
made on December 22 during the crackdown by Hyderabad and Cyberabad police on
five call centres in Hyderabad and Gurugram.
Hyderabad police arrested 11 people while Cyberabad police nabbed six people in
the multi-crore money-lending racket. Police claimed that thousands of people
across the country were targeted through instant loan apps after lockdown.
"The call centres in Hyderabad employed 600 telecallers and at Gurugram
there were nearly 500 telecallers, offering services to 30 money-lending apps.
These money-lending app companies were illegally operating without following
RBI guidelines and subjecting people who borrowed money to harassment, forcing
some of them to commit suicide," said Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani
Kumar said.
It was on December 25 that the first Chinese was arrested in the racket.
Cyberabad police Yi Bai alias Dennis from Delhi. He was managing at least 11
such apps offering small loans at extremely high interest rates. The prime
accused is suspected to be another Chinese national Zixia Zhang, who is
believed to be currently in Singapore.
On December 27, Rachakonda police arrested three persons, including a female
Chinese national Liang Tian Tian. Parshuram Lahu Takve, his wife Liang Tian
Tian and HR Manager S.K. Aaqib, were arrested from the Pune call centre. The
accused had an agreement with four different financing companies in Mumbai and
Mysuru for loan recovery by setting up a call centre in Pune.
According to Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat the tele-callers
abused customers in filthy language and threatened them with dire consequences.
On December 30, the Hyderabad police arrested two more persons, including a
Chinese national Zhu Wei alias Lambo. The 27-year-old Chinese was picked up at
Delhi airport minutes before he was to board a flight to Frankfurt on his way
to Shanghai.
Lambo is alleged to be the overall head of four different companies running
seven call centres in Gurugram, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Police believe that
four companies run by the accused allegedly carried out 1.4 crore transactions
worth nearly Rs 21,000 crore. He was reportedly in touch with another Chinese
national, Yuan Yuan alias Sissi alias Jennifer, who set up the operations in
India but is believed to be in China.
On January 13, Rachakonda police arrested Chinese national He Jian and his
Indian associate Vivek Kumar from Thane. Jian's arrest came following interrogation
of Liang Tian Tian. The arrested Chinese have reportedly revealed the names of
at least five other accused, all Chinese nationals.
Instant loan apps scam is not the first case in which Chinese have been
arrested. In October, the Hyderabad police had arrested Yah Hao from Delhi for
illegally running betting apps and duping Indians of crores of rupees. The
investigators found similarity between betting racket and loan apps as both
used Indians as fronts and relied on digital wallets to move money.