Delhi Police busts Chinese loan app fraud, 8 held

The Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) Unit of Delhi Police`s Special Cell has arrested eight persons from Delhi and other parts of the country for allegedly extorting the people on the pretext of providing and repaying the loan amount. The accused were using a Chinese loan application to provide loans and extorting and abusing people on the pretext of not repaying the loan amount. 

IFSO Unit of Special Cell has arrested eight persons so far from Delhi, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, Gurugram, Haryana and other parts of the country. According to the police, a complaint was received by the IFSO unit, where the complainant alleged that some anonymous person was abusing and threatening her by morphed pictures and sending the same to her family and others.

The complainant has taken a loan from the Chinese application. Although she repaid the same in time after repaying the said amount she started getting threatening and abusive WhatsApp calls and messages from the loan company`s employees, the police said. 

A team of police officials conducted raids at Pitampura and Rohini areas, where the accused namely Rohit Kumar, Vividh Kumar, Puneet, and Manish were arrested and the mobile numbers and devices used in the crime were also recovered from them. The police arrested another accused Divya, wife of Puneeth Kumar, who was also found involved in the case later.

During the investigation, it was found that out of the two teams running the racket, one team used to track loan seekers and after one day used to call the loan seekers through different mobile numbers, to refund the money, the police said.

"Even after the refund, the accused used to extort more money from the loan seeker by threatening them. While the second team of the gang used to manage the financial transactions. After receiving the extortion amount in the bank, the accused used to transfer the money to their masters in China, Hong Kong, Dubai etc after converting it into cryptocurrency. All the gang members were getting their share accordingly to their role and their performance," the police said.

DCP IFSO, KPS Malhotra revealed that the complainant received threats from multiple WhatsApp numbers. One alleged WhatsApp contact user was using the picture of a senior IPS Officer as a profile picture. The loan app is malicious and uses the personal details of the user to send it to a third party, the police informed. 

The police found that the extorted amount was being transferred to a current account. An amount of Rs 8.45 crores was credited in the past 15 days and the same was transferred to other accounts simultaneously. The police arrested the account holder identified as Rohit Kumar.

On March 14, police arrested the mastermind of the group, Ravi Shakar from Jodhpur, who provided all the bank accounts to one alleged Chinese national.

The police said, "It was further found that the cheated amount was being sent to China through cryptocurrency by the accused Krishana. The police identified the Crypto accounts of three Chinese nationals involved in the case."

In another raid conducted at Gurugram, police arrested accused Sumit, who used to make calls to victims through a fraudulently obtained WhatsApp number. On the basis of this disclosure statement of accused Sumit, another accused namely Kartik Panchal alias Deepak was arrested who was the team leader. 

It was further found that he was running a team of callers who used to make calls to the loan seekers who had taken a loan from their app. The police filed the case under sections 384, 385,419, 420, and 120 of the Indian Penal Code.