The crackdown against illegal call centres in Nepal that were allegedly involved in the harassment of borrowers of loan apps has spurred the Mumbai Crime Branch to approach the police in the Himalayan nation through official channels to take its own investigation forward. In several cases, morphed pictures of Indian borrowers originated from Nepal, said the police. In multiple raids in Kathmandu and Rupandehi, the Nepal police have arrested over 160 people, including five Chinese nationals, over shady loan apps.

Sources said the Crime Branch had probed over 200 loan apps but couldn’t do much after finding that many morphed pictures had originated from sources with IP addresses in Nepal. They initially didn’t communicate with the Nepal police as they thought the cyber crooks might have used a virtual private network to divert IP addresses to deflect their attention.