Loan apps racket: Cops net five who tortured borrowers

Exactly 15 days after the state home minister called a meeting with top Maharashtra Cyber Cell officials along with midday reporters taking cognisance of the loan app harassment reportage the Cyber Cell has busted one module originating from Karnataka Five accused who have been harassing borrowers by morphing their pictures and sharing the same with the victimsrsquo contacts were arrested The arrested accused includes a supervisor who was on the payroll of the loan app syndicateThe state cyber cell registered an umbrella case to investigate the entire syndicate last month following instructions from home minister Dilip Walse Patil ldquoAfter thorough investigation we got the link of one WhatsApp number which belongs to a vegetable seller in Dhule district The vegetable seller was interrogated and we learned that someone else was using the number as he didnrsquot even have a smartphonerdquo Maharashtra ADG Madhukar Pandey said at a press conference on MondayAlso read 21yrold from Byculla loses Rs 52K to online loan sharksState Cyber Cell SP Sanjay Shintre ADG Madhukar Pandey and cyber IG Yashasvi YadavThe arrestsSP Sanjay Shintre said that based on an OTP received by the vegetable seller they traced the main accused who were found running the syndicate to recover loans from borrowers ldquoOur team was deployed to Dharwad in Karnataka and we carried out raid at a residence of one accused and apprehended himrdquo Pandey saidThe arrested accused identified as Ahmed Husain 26 is a Std XII dropout and worked for the syndicate at a monthly salary of R12000 Husain confessed to the crime and gave the cops details of his supervisor ldquoOur teams then reached Uttar Kannada district of Karnataka and arrested the supervisorrdquo Pandey saidFrom left Maharashtra Cyber Cell SP Sanjay Shintre ADG Madhukar Pandey IG Yashasvi Yadav at a press conference on MondayWhen the cyber cell team arrested the supervisor Suhail Sayyed 24 three other accusedmdashSayyed Mohammed Athar 24 Mohammed Kaif Kadari 22 and Muftiaz Peerzademdashmanaged to escape ldquoWe then took the help of local police and apprehended the threerdquo Pandey addedBackgroundCyber cops found that Sayyed has an MBA degree and was hired by another person who is being investigated to recover money for Happy Loan app ldquoWe are investigating the role of other people who are suspected to be kingpin of the entire syndicate These accused were found working for a few more apps but we cannot reveal the names as of yetrdquo said PandeyApart from Sayyed Athar has done IT course after completing Std XII Kadari is in secondyear of computer science course while Peerzade has completed his BCom degreeThe accused were operating from different locations in Karnataka at a salary of Rs 12000Rs 15000 while Sayed drew a monthly salary of Rs 20000The cops added that all agents were given a target to recover Rs 40000 every day for which they needed to make around 100 calls daily ldquoThey used to reach their targets almost everyday and yet continued to send messages to borrowers This is a clear case of extortion and hence we have added relevant sections of IPC apart from the IT Actrdquo said ShintreProbe findingsCyber cops have also found verbiage from the cell phones of the accused ldquoIt was a proper script where everything is narrated which includes the abusive and threatening messages sent to the loan borrowers They were also told how to start the conversation by threatening the borrowers with sending their morphed photos to their relativesrdquo an officer saidAccording to sources the cyber cell has identified a few more people who are suspected to have links with Happy Loans from Gujarat ldquoIt appears that the address of the app is fake and the real owners of the app are somewhere else We will get more clarity after interrogating these accused and properly scanning their mobile phonesrdquo the officer addedThe officials have seized 5 mobile phones and 5 SIM cards from these accused ldquoWe are taking help from cyber forensic experts to get further details in the caserdquo said YadavChina linkAfter preliminary investigation cyber cops suspect the role of Chinese nationalsAccording to cyber cell the amount paid by the loan borrowers have gone to different UPI accounts which have been thoroughly examinedldquoThese payments were to different accounts through UPI and we suspect that money has gone to the real owners via differ routes who are suspected to be in Chinardquo An officer privy to the investigation saidldquoThe route of this entire syndicate is taking us to China but as of now the investigation is at a very premature stagerdquo said an officer on the condition of anonymityCyber cell writes to RBI againThe cyber cell has again written to the Reserve Bank of India to make an amendment while granting permission to NBFCs as most of them are violating rules allowing private loan apps to give loans on digital platforms without having permission from the RBI ldquoRecently RBI has cancelled licences of 5 NBFCsrdquo an officer saidThe cyber cell has registered one FIR after identifying 27 victims in Mumbai who have given complaints on their website and one victim from Mulund who came forward to register an FIR ldquoThe victim took a Rs 8000 loan and paid R96000 and yet his photos were morphed and shared with his relatives They even sent messages saying that the victim was accused in a rape case of a minor girlrdquo Shintre addedThe cyber cell has also identified five states from where these calls are being mademdashRajasthan Delhi West Bengal Bihar and Karnataka Officers believe that the Karnataka syndicate is almost neutralised with the arrest of these arrests Rs 20kMonthly salary of supervisor of the busted module