December 23, 2020 10:30:06 am
Cyberabad Police registered a case under sections 420 (cheating), 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC and also invoked section 66 of the TI Act, sections 3, 10 and 13 (1) of the Lenders Act of Money from Telangana and launched an investigation. .
Cracking down on illegal app-based microloan instant loan companies, Hyderabad police arrested 11 people from Delhi, Gurgaon and Cyberabad police arrested another six here. Based on the complaints, the Hyderabad and Cyberabad police have registered 16 and 7 cases, respectively, against these companies.
In the past two weeks, three people, including an unemployed technician and an agricultural extension officer, have been killed allegedly due to harassment by representatives of such applications for loan repayment. The Telangana DGP office had 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 their operations were illegal.
Cyberabad police, in response to a complaint, raided the facilities of Onion Credit Private Limited and Cred fox Technologies Private Limited, based in the city, and arrested CEO and Director K Sarath Chandra, along with two other directors, two collection agents and a team leader.
The whistleblower had told police that he downloaded an app called ‘Cash Mama’ in January 2020 from the Google Play Store and uploaded his Aadhaar card, PAN card, self-authenticating photo, three-month bank statement, etc., for a loan of 5,000 rupees. to return in 7 days. The company deducted Rs 1180 for GST and processing fees and credited Rs 3820 to his bank account. Similarly, he took a loan six more times from the same application. He told the police that they suggested similar loan applications such as ‘Hey Fish’, ‘Monkey cash’, ‘Cash Elephant’, ‘Loan Zone’, ‘Cash Zone’, ‘Water Elephant’, ‘Mera Loan’ etc.
For 8 months, he got a total loan of Rs 30,000, but only received Rs 20,000 after deductions. But he ended up paying Rs 29,000 even after which the loan was not paid off. He was asked to pay Rs 8,634 more, after which company representatives began harassing and blackmailing him with dire consequences. They also accessed his contact list from his phone and began contacting his family members and abusing them in obscene language, he said in the complaint.
Cyberabad Police registered a case under sections 420 (cheating), 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC and also invoked section 66 of the TI Act, sections 3, 10 and 13 (1) of the Lenders Act of Money from Telangana and launched an investigation. .
Cyberabad Police Send Notices to 9 NBFC
Cyberabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar, speaking to the media, said that companies are charging 35 percent interest from customers, imposing huge penalties on non-payers and harassing defaulters. Both companies established by K Sharath Chandra have entered into agreements with 9 NBFCs to acquire clients, market, verify creditworthiness, originate loans, disburse and collect. Up to 110 people are employed in these two companies in Hyderabad.
“In this case, notices have been issued to all NBFCs and their CEOs, and a notice has also been sent to Google to remove the applications due to their criminal activities,” said the police commissioner.
The “Dhana Dhan” application is not linked to any NBFC, while the “Cash Mama” and “Loan Zone” mobile applications are linked to 9 NBFCs located in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Nagpur. The ‘Cash Mama’ app linked to Onion Credit and the ‘Dhana Dhan Loan’ app and the ‘Loan Zone’ app linked to Cred Fox Technologies have a customer base of 1.5 lakh, of which 70,000 are currently active said the Commissioner.
Different buckets for defaulters:
Speaking about the operations of these companies, he said that customers are divided into different cubes. Customers on the due date are placed in group DO, those who are in the first three days of the loan in default are placed in group S1, those who are between 4 and 10 days in default are in group S2 and those that have between 11 and 30 days in the S3 cube.
“To recover the loan from clients, they practice different methods depending on the cube they are in, except the day after the due date, minus the treatment, otherwise the treatment will be very harsh, threatening and abusive. They also access the contacts of family and friends of clients and send them WhatsApp messages defameting the defaulter, ”he said.
The police also discovered that the companies have 2 nodal bank accounts. One, which pools the amounts from the NBFCs and disburses 75-80 percent of the loan after deducting various fees, and another, where the amounts reimbursed by clients are collected and, in turn, paid to the NBFCs. Up to 18 bank accounts belonging to these two companies have been frozen at 1.52 million rupees.
The researchers found that Sharath Chandra-owned companies developed their apps to maintain the customer database and placed them on the Google Play Store for easy download by customers. Both companies i.e Onion Credit and Credfox Technologies designed mobile apps, namely ‘Cash Mama’, ‘Loan Zone’, ‘Dhana Dhan Loan’, ‘Cash Up’, ‘Cash bus’,’ Mera Loan ‘and’ Cash Zone ‘.
They also sold two apps i.e ‘Cash bus’ and ‘Cash Up’ to Asia Inno Networks Pvt. Ltd., Delhi and two apps i.e ‘Mera loan’ and ‘Cash Zone’ to Blue Shield Fintech Pvt. Ltd ., Bangalore.
Hyderabad police suspect ties to China
Meanwhile, Hyderabad police raided two locations in Gurgaon and three other locations in Hyderabad where call centers were operated on behalf of four companies. These callers were found to be persuading, harassing and intimidating loan defaulters.
Speaking to the media, Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar said that these call centers were run on behalf of four companies: Liufang Technologies private limited, Hotful Technologies private limited, Pinprint Technologies and Nabloom Technologies private limited. . They have their registered offices in Bengaluru and the call centers employ 500 telecallers in Gurgaon and 600 in Hyderabad.
“These callers got instructions from their heads in Indonesia. The entire operation of these loan applications seems to be run by Chinese citizens. This was also indicated during an investigation into the multi-crore color prediction game app scam where millions of rupees were transferred to shell companies that were registered as NBFC, ”he said.
The raids at call centers have led to the seizure of nearly 700 laptops, servers, computer systems, etc. More research is being done to understand the network of financial transactions, financing, technology base, etc., he added.
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