Rising incidence of people being threatened and blackmailed after availing loans through fraudulent lending applications has put cops on alert; CID crime identifies 279 such apps, writes to Google, gets 112 of them removed
Nareshkumar Patel (name changed) was delighted when he got a message about instant loans on his phone. Patel, who was doing petty jobs after losing his job during Covid, thought a loan could help him restart his life. He clicked on the link, uploaded his details and Rs 50,000 was disbursed to him. Then his life went haywire as the application he used for loan was a fraud lending app. Scamsters got hold of his details and began to threaten him with calls demanding four times the money he got. They also threatened to release his morphed pictures on social media. Tired of the harassment, Patel approached the Ahmedabad Cyber Cell on April 1. Investigations led to the arrest of Joginder Kushwah from Uttar Pradesh.
“We found that Kushwah was part of a gang which operated from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar and targeted Gujaratis through fraud lending applications and loan disbursement messages on their mobile phones,” said a cyber-crime official.
A senior CID crime official recounted another case in which a youth from Himmatnagar, who sought a loan through these fraud apps, was asked to pay Rs 7.44 lakh. “The criminals threatened to morph his pictures and release them on social media. They also threatened to book him in a false rape case,” said the official.
The CID crime, which is looking into such cases, found that there are 279 such fraud lending applications available on Google Play store which link loan messages to a victim’s phone. “We reported such applications to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and have also written to Google. Of the 279 applications, 112 have been removed, while the rest 167 are being verified. We have also traced over 100 telephone numbers that are used
to make calls to victims,” said an official.
DIG Saurabh Tolambiya said that people need to be aware of such fraud loan messages which when clicked take them to a lending application. “Such applications steal all personal data from the phone including photos and bank details,” Tolambiya said. He urged people to opt for banks and not suspected links when availing of loans.
Such applications steal all personal data from the phone including photos and bank details
–Saurabh Tolambiya, DIG
Financial fraud regulators meet
The State Level Coordination Committee (SLCC) on Tuesday met with officials of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), city police and other financial fraud regulatory authorities in Gandhinagar. “We have asked RBI to give us details of legal non-banking financial institutions so that we can identify the fraud ones. We have to crack down on such fraud operators to prevent people from being blackmailed,” said a cop.
Woman receives indecent messages
A woman working with an NGO who availed of a loan through an application and shared her documents found her documents being shared with her superior with indecent messages. A FIR was registered in this regard at Kagadapith police station.
Hitendra Doriya (60) runs an organisation named ‘Abhilasha’. Doriya told cops that last month he had received a picture of a PAN card through WhatsApp which had details of his subordinate. Along with the picture, a message also mentioned his subordinate was in dire need of money to pay a loan and was ready to offer sex for money. When Doriya confronted his subordinate, she told him that she had acquired a loan through an application named ‘Holiday’ where she had also shared her documents. Later her documents were shared with other applications which had a tie up with the loan application and she constantly received indecent messages and calls. She then registered an FIR at Kagdapith police station.
List of some fraudulent lending apps
1 Handy Loan application
2 Rocket Loan application
3 Smart Loan application
4 Rupees Lend application
5 Rupees Smart application
6 MoMo application
7 Fast Rupee application
8 Cash Rupee application
9 Flash Loan application
10 Enjoy Loan application
