College dropouts roped in by loan sharks for recovery in Karnataka

The accused arrested from Bengaluru was harassing a client’s relatives and friends. Representation pic

The arrest of a teenager from Bengaluru, Karnataka, has unearthed a network of call centres being used by online platforms offering instant loans via mobile apps to recover the money. These centres have hired youngsters - college dropouts - as recovery agents, who harass the clients.

These thugs are believed to be a big threat, as they not only harass the people who took out loans and were unable to pay, but also make life miserable for their relatives and friends. In the past, some of the defaulters had even attempted suicide following mental torture suffered at the hands of such agents.

The preliminary inquiry has revealed that the teenagers use the scariest means to pressurise the clients to recover the loan amount. They get access to the phone contact book, as the clients unknowingly give access to the data while filling the application forms online.

Loan recovery agents threaten the defaulters and harass their relatives and friends. Representation pic

Defaulters are bombarded with hundreds of spam messages daily, humiliated on social media platforms and insulted in front of their friends and relatives. In the case of the Bengaluru accused, Harsha B, 19, he had sent circulated morphed semi-nude photos to the defaulter's contact list. Harsha was arrested from his home in Bengaluru on Sunday, following a complaint to the Andheri Government Railway Police (GRP).

On interrogation, Harsha told police he left college after first year in BSc and started working at a call centre, where he used to call people as a recovery agent for a perk of 10 per cent of the recovery amount, in addition to his fixed salary. Senior police inspector of Andheri GRP, Dattatray Nikam, said, "We suspect that the mastermind behind the application loan and other instant loans are running call centres for loan recovery where people like Harsha, college dropouts and jobless people are being lured with offers of commission."

Police said the call centre where Harsha worked employed around half a dozen dropouts like him. They worked round the clock and took their 10 per cent cut from the manager on a daily basis. Nikam added, "After the arrest of Harsha, we got a clue that this loan racket is active in Karnataka and its adjoining states, especially in Kerala. The racketeers are running fake call centres in different states. Teams have been prepared to hunt down the mastermind, and they will be sent to Karnataka and nearby states, including Kerala."

The recent case

The Andheri GRP arrested Harsha for allegedly morphing a woman's photo and posting it on social media to harass her into repaying a loan of Rs 9,000. The complainant, a beautician who lives in Kalyan, is the victim's relative, said GRP officers. She was travelling in a local in March when she received a WhatsApp message from the accused. The message contained obscene photos. When she called him, he told her to ask her relative to return the loan amount.

The beautician approached the GRP police and registered a complaint against the sender [Harsha], said an officer. During the probe, police learnt that a relative of the complainant had taken the loan in 2019, and the accused had been threatening her ever since. The woman had switched off the mobile phone and later threw away the SIM card, said the officer. Harsha had then sent threatening messages and obscene videos to her contacts, especially women to harass them. Police, upon investigation, traced the sender to Karnataka.

"A team was sent to Karnataka where they traced the owner of the mobile and SIM card. He was 75 years old. Upon questioning, he told the police that his grandson Harsha B has been using the phone and the number," said Nikam. Harsha confessed to his crime, he added. He has been remanded in police custody. "I urge people not to get trapped by fake advertisements, pasted around the railway stations, for instant loan. This can land you in serious trouble," he added.