Hyderabad: The Chinese instant loan app case’s probe is hitting a dead end with the city police tracing calls from company executives to Nepal.
According to the police, loan apps companies shifted their base to Nepal, Bhutan and the Philippines following the arrest of a few owners of these companies in India, which were cheating innocent victims. Police in several cities of India registered cases against Chinese loan app companies after people committed suicide due to digital shaming by money collection agents, who are usually referred to as executives.
The executives are paid a commission on the recovery of loans as an incentive for their salaries.
“During the probe into cases we found the servers and backend operations are in Nepal, Bhutan and Philippines,” said an official of Hyderabad police.
In 2021, the Telangana police booked nearly 50 cases relating to the Chinese loan apps. About 100 persons, including Chinese nationals, were arrested by the police.
The Telangana police wrote to tech giant Google to remove illegal loan applications from its Play Store. The company management proved smarter.
People are now getting text messages or Whatsapp messages with a link that redirects to an instant loan app. Anyone clicking the link is directed to an application and asked to download it. The further procedure is the same.
“Any person applies for a loan and after processing the request, the amount is credited to his account. The gangs have a database of old customers and randomly acquire new data through third parties,” an official of Hyderabad police said.
A multi-million business with companies hiring hundreds of people managements are least bothered about spending amounts when there is demand and returns high.
“Recovery executives/ agents, instead of doing calls directly, are making WhatsApp calls. The regular phone number is switched off. Moreover, they are not using data on regular phones and are instead using hotspots or WiFi to make phone calls,” the official added.
Earlier, the Hyderabad police booked 22 cases and arrested 22 persons including China nationals in the fraud running into thousands of crores rupees.
Around 3,000 bank accounts were frozen. The Cyberabad police and Rachakonda police arrested a few foreign nationals and local people for the fraud too. The police raided call centres at Gurgaon, Bengaluru, Delhi and Hyderabad and seized electronic gadgets and other incriminating material.
