5 arrested in loan apps harassment cases

Machilipatnam: Krishna district cybercrime police have arrested five persons, who were associated with loan apps and have been harassing loan borrowers in Penamaluru area.

Krishna district Superintendent of Police P Joshua produced the accused before the media at a press meet in Machilipatnam on Thursday. According to SP Joshua, the cybercrime police arrested the five accused - Rahul Singh; Rohit Kumar of Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh; Ajay Shankar Upadhyana of Ayodhya district, Uttar Pradesh; Abhishek Kumar Sinha of New Delhi; and Akthar Hussain of Hyderabad. The accused operate loan apps network from different States, with servers based in Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and Nepal. These gangs create UPI links and send to WhatsApp users and send text messages to mobile numbers. Since the process is easy and no need of any documents, mobile users download the links and take loans. Banks loans are sanctioned from one State and phone and video calls are made from other States to the borrowers.

Cybercrime police noticed the gangs do not operate all activities from one place and operate from different locations using the social media. The loan apps network spread over different parts of the country particularly in North India, said the SP Joshua. The accused have been harassing the borrowers with abusive language and threatened them of sharing their personal photos and videos.

Krishna district cyber police with the help of advanced technology tracked the details of accused and went to places like Ghaziabad, Delhi and Ayodhya to arrest them. Krishna district police earlier arrested four culprits involved in threatening calls and abusing the loan borrowers. The members of these loan gangs will take nearly 5% commission and resort to harassing and threatening activities.

The cyber police noticed that the culprits have made transactions to a tune of Rs 91.84 lakh in 15 banks. The cyber police asked the banks to freeze bank accounts' amount worth Rs 23.33 lakh and detailed inquiry is being conducted on the loans sanctioned and repayment made by the victims.

SP Joshua has stated that efforts were on to do justice to the victims of loan apps. He appealed to people to call Dial 100, cybercrime helpline 1030 and give information on the criminal activities of loan apps. He suggested the people to avoid using loan app links and avoid downloading apps, instead he asked them to take loans from recognised banks. He also suggested not to respond to the calls of unknown persons. Cybercrime circle inspector K Sivaji, Sub-inspector of police S Srinivas and team went to Delhi and Uttar Pradesh to nab the culprits.