Loan scam
App based loan app scam surfaces; RBI cautions
Hyderabad/IBNS: The Hyderabad Police has busted a multi-crore money lending scam, run through multiple apps, which charged its targets up to 35 per cent interest and allegedly accumulated Rs 423 crore in 75 banks, which were seized for investigation.
According to media reports, the mobile apps used for the purpose were not approved by the Reserve Bank of India.
Police have arrested 16 individuals from Hyderabad and Gurgaon where the operators of the scam were traced.
The presence of the loan sharks came to the notice of the police when three people committed suicide after allegedly harassed and humiliated by the peole, said an NDTV report.
Hyderabad Police have arrested seven people in connection with the crime, including an engineer with a degree from the United States, it said.
The accused Sarath Chandra ran the money lending operation through two companies he started in 2018-19, Onion Credit Pvt Ltd and Cred Fox Technologies. He had been also selling loan apps to companies in Bengaluru.
So far seven people, including Chandra have been arrested by the Cyberabad Police, the report cited above said.
According to media reports, the company employed hundreds of youngsters across three call centres where customers were lured into borrowing money through multiple apps and later blackmailed, threatened and defamed to recover the loaned money. Reports said that the young employees trained to ensnare the people in need of money and make the recoveries, were mostly fresh graduates paid Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000.
The company had employed over 1,000 people to run its operations.
Money was lended at not only extremely high interest rates but also with several hidden charges.
As police expanded the probe, multiple layers of the alleged illegal loan company emerged, revealing links to nine Non Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) in Delhi, Ghaziabad, Nagpur, Mumbai and Bengaluru and China and Indonesia, the report said, adding that a woman with Chinese passport was arrested from Gurgram.
Police have said a multi-city probe can help in exposing the extent of the scam.
Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India in a statement cautioned against unauthorised digital lending platforms and apps that promised easy loans
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