Pune cyber police form special team to probe loan app fraud cases | Pune News

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PUNE: The city cyber police have formed a special team to probe cases of fraud, extortion and harassment by agents of instant loan apps.
Between January and June (till June 24) this year, the Pune cyber police received 1,783 complaints relating to extortion, cheating, threats and harassment from those who availed loans from microlending apps. The complainants also alleged that the recovery agents circulated their morphed images and fake information to those on their contact list. The police had received 928 complaint applications in 2021 and 837 in 2020 pertaining to loan app fraud.
Pune police commissioner Amitabh Gupta and deputy commissioner of police (cyber) Bhagyashri Navtake reviewed the complaints and directed the cyber police to form a special team to probe cases of fraud and harassment relating to loan app scams.
Senior police inspector D S Hake of cyber police told TOI, “The team comprises a police inspector, an assistant inspector and five constables.” Hake said, “During the probe, the police identified as many as 200 suspicious loan applications which provide micro loans to individuals. The amount of loan offered by these applications ranges from Rs5,000 to Rs 50,000. These loan app firms mostly operate from NCR, Delhi, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bengaluru, Maharashtra, and other places.”
“We regularly receive complaints of harassment from citizens against loan applications. The victims claim that call centre executives of these loan applications issue threats to them if some EMIs are not paid. Even those who have only downloaded the applications but did not take loans have received threats and derogatory calls from these executives,” Hake said.
“The suspects use deepfake technology to morph these images. The executives study the social networking pages of victims carefully before uploading morphed images or issuing threats over phone,” Hake said.
Cybercrime expert and lawyer Gaurav Jachak said, “No one has the right to violate one’s private space by making derogatory calls. The call centre executives of these firms threaten people by uploading their obscene morphed images on social media platforms.”