After the home minister ordered a speedy probe into the instant loan racket, the Maharashtra police’s cyber cell is considering approaching the Interpol through the CBI, said a highly placed source in the police department. Police recently learnt that loan sharks are pulling the strings from Nepal and the money extorted from the victims is routed to China, the state police seek to gather more details of the foreign companies hosting the apps. The lenders, through their recovery agents, have harassed the borrowers, and driven some of them to suicide.
 
A senior officer told mid-day that the police will submit a report to the Maharashtra home minister after the initial investigation in the case. They will request the minister to seek the central government’s help in getting the Interpol involved, so that they can collect crucial information in the case. The development follows a meeting Home Minister Dilip Walse Patil held with a team of mid-day and the top brass of the state police on May 25. Patil instructed the police to show results in 10 days.

“Many foreign companies have offered cloud platforms to the fraud loan apps and are also giving cloud storage for hosting them. But we won’t get the data of such companies as they are based overseas. Therefore, we need the help of Interpol for procuring the details of such companies, like the owner’s name, e-mail IDs, the person who did the registration, etc.,” said the officer.