Four people, including a Chinese national, were arrested by Cyberabad police on Friday as part of their crackdown on illegal app-based microcredit instant loan companies. Police raided a call center in Hyderabad called ‘Cubevo Technology Private Limited’, whose head office, ‘Skyline Innovations Technologies India Private Limited’, is located in Delhi.
Police said they have so far identified two call centers in Gurgaon and Hyderabad that are involved in illegal app-based loans. A bank account with Rs 2 crore has been seized.
Those arrested have been identified as Yi Bai alias Dennis, who hails from Jiangxi in Shanghai, along with Satyapal Khyalia from Delhi, as well as Hyderabad-based Aniriddh Malhotra and Murathoti Richie Hemanth Seth. The directors of the company, Zixia Zhang, another Chinese national, and Umapati alias Ajay, are on the run.
Speaking to the media, Cyberabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar said that Zixia Zhang and Umapati registered the company in Gurgaon and developed 11 applications for instant loans.
Sajjanar said that while Zhang is the mastermind, Umapati operates the bank accounts related to all companies. Together they started Digi Peergo Tech Private Limited in December 2019 and also incorporated Skyline Innovation India Private Limited technology with the help of a Singapore-based company called Xikai Holding PTE Limited the same month. They established call centers throughout the country and hired telecommunications to collect the loan amounts.
Yi Bai, alias Dennis, said the commissioner, is the chief operating officer (COO) of Xikai Holding PTE Limited. He had arrived in India in February 2020 on a business visa and stayed as Skyline’s business development manager. Together with Satyapal, he has been setting up call centers throughout India.
The commissioner further said that through these 11 instant loan applications, the defendants offered loans to individuals and collected huge refunds, including interest, processing fees, GST, default fees and even fines. By not paying, defaulters are subjected to abuse, harassment and face threats of dire consequences from executives employed in call centers. They were found blackmailing the borrowers by sending false legal notices to the family, Sajjanar said.
The Cyberabad Cyber Crime Police have so far registered eight cases against this type of digital money loan application.
The latest arrests are based on an investigation into a recent complaint in which the complainant claimed that he had taken a loan of 2015 rupees for seven days. They gave her 1600 rupees after deducting 415 rupees from the GST and the processing fee. An instant loan was sanctioned after the app verified your Aadhaar card, PAN card, authenticated photo and bank statement from the last three months. Soon he began to receive calls from similar applications. Out of 28 instant loan applications, he has borrowed 1.20,000 rupees and repaid 2.00,000 rupees with interest. Despite the refund, he has received threats and abuse. Police investigated the complaint and raided the call center in Hyderabad that led to the arrests.
The applications that the company operated are 1) Loan Gram 2) Cash Train 3) Cash Bus 4) AAA Cash 5) Super Cash 6) Mint Cash 7) Happy Cash 8) Loan card 9) Pay one 10) Money Box 11) Monkey box etc.
Explaining the operations, Sajjanar said that the loans are granted for 7 or 15 days. After the due date is completed, the borrower is placed in a cube (S-0, S-1, S-2, S-3, M-2, M-3, X, etc.).
“The smaller the cube the borrower is in, the less the abusive treatment, and the abuse and harassment increase with the larger cube. They abuse customers with obscene language and threaten them with dire consequences. They even go to the extreme of accessing clients’ contacts from their phone and begin to abuse and threaten family, relatives and friends with calls and messages, ”he said.
Earlier on Thursday, a police team led by Sajjanar met with K Nikhila, the regional director of the Reserve Bank of India in Hyderabad, and informed him about the misuse of online applications by non-bank financial companies ( NBFC). Police have yet to find out if these 11 apps are tied to any NBFCs.
An unemployed technician, a state government agricultural extension officer and a farmer from across Telangana have all died by suicide in recent days, allegedly due to harassment from instant overpayment microloan loan applications.
Telangana DGP’s office stated that at least 60 of these loan applications available on the Google Play Store were not registered or recognized by the Reserve Bank of India as NBFC and that their operations were illegal.
.
