Cyberabad: 3 People Including One Chinese Woman Arrested In Instant Loan Apps Fraud

CYBERABAD: Three people including a Chinese woman were arrested by the Rachakonda Police in an another case of  instant loan apps fraud case which was operating from Pune under fake company certifications on Sunday. The accused include Parshuram Lahu Takve, his wife  a Chinese national named Liang TianTian and Sk. Aaqib, a student.One more person is said to be absconding. The company account (HDFC), with an amount of Rs1.42 crores was  also frozen. 

According to the police,on 18th November 2020, a victim Bhumana Prasad from Uppal, Hyderabad had taken a loan amount of Rs.3,500/- from one App My Bank and within one week he paid it. Later he took a loan for Rs.4,500/- from the same Loan App and again he paid the amount.

Later when he verified his bank statement (SBI Bank) he found that an amount of Rs. 26,000/- was credited to his bank account from 14 different Loan applications i.e., Bubble loan, Rupee Bazar, Ok cash, rupee factory, Paisa Loan, One hope, Cash bee, In Need, Snapit loan, cashalo, Piggy bank, Krazy Rupee, Real Rupee/Rupee Bear, Rupee Most without his request, for which he paid Rs.44,000/-(Approx.) to said loan apps.

But the said apps continuously crediting amounts to his account without his consent and harassing him to repay excess amounts.

In this way the complainant was forced into debt trap by these microfinance loan apps and harassed him for repayment levying abnormal rate of interests. The complainant on enquiry came to know that they were running the non-banking finance businesses without valid licenses from RBI/concerned Govt. authorities and they are collecting the contact details and photos from the borrowers while sanctioning the loans.

After sanctioning the loans, they started asking for repayment within 7 days period including higher rate of interest i.e more than 50% without following the rules/regulations of RBI. If not paid within due date, they started harassment through tele-callers by threatening to defame his character in the society.

Modus Operandi

In the year 2013 the accused Parshuram Lahu Takve met Liang Tian Tian, a Chinese national and married her. She came to India on a dependent visa in the year 2016 and they have one girl child.

Earlier the accused started Hypertel Pvt. Ltd. at Koregaon to provide BPO services with limited employees and closed the company in March 2020 due to Covid-19 Lockdown. Recently again in June 2020 he started Jiya Liang InfoTech Pvt Ltd at Business Avenue Centre, Lane No. 6, Koregaon park, Pune. The Directors of the company are  Parushuram Takwe, Amit Nandu Kalbhor of Maharashtra who is absconding. The company was registered on 15-07-2020 in ROC and executed business agreement with “Bienance Infrastructure Technology” West Mumbai, “Ajaya Solutions Pvt. Ltd”. Thane of Mumbai and “Taelde Technology Pvt. Ltd”.  Mysore, Karnataka for providing Tele caller services for the recovery of the loan payment dues. The said companies are doing online instant loan lending business through various applications and sanctioning the personal unsecured loans through digital apps to the borrowers. In the course of running the company, he procured the Laptops, Desktops and network routers from China. The employees working in the company were issued dedicated User ID & Passwords, where each User ID contains 13 or more applications of Instant Loans.

The accused did not produce any valid agreement copies executed between 1) Ajaya Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Thane, Mumbai, 2) Taelde Technology Pvt. Ltd.  Mysore, Karnataka and 3) Bienance Infrastructure Technology West Mumbai when confronted. The company did not produce any valid licences by their clients from RBI to run the NBFC.

Presently around 650 employees are working in the company who were instructed to use their personal mobile numbers to call the borrowers.

As per the instructions of the accused, they were making calls to the borrowers and their relatives, friends and insisting them to repay the loan amounts along with interest added by the company.

They are collecting personal contact data and photos of barrower at the time of sanctioning the loan to them through above said apps.

After one week of sanctioning the loan, the customer data provided to the company for calling the victims over their phone numbers to repay the loan amounts through provided links.

The company clients developed around 16 Instant loan applications that offer loans to individuals and collect huge repayments (including interest, processing charges, GST, default charges, 1% penalty) and also resort to systematic abusing, harassing, threatening of the defaulters through call centres run by them. They even blackmail the borrowers by sending fake legal notices to their relatives and family members.

List of Instant Loan Applications:

1)Krazy bean 2) Krazy rupee 3) Cashplus 4) Rupee Pro 5) Gold bowl 6) First Cash 7) Real rupee/Rupee Bear 8) Rupee most 9) First cash 10) Credit rupee 11) Cool Cash 12) Money now 13) Pocket rupee 14) Rupee day 15) Cash goo 16) Cash star.

These applications are developed in such a way that on installing these apps they get access to the contacts, mobile information, and other data on the device. These applications collect the Id proofs, PAN card, KYC documents, and bank account details of the customers.

They check the genuineness of the documents and disburse small amounts in the form of a loan to their bank accounts by debiting the processing charges and GST i.e., 25-30 per cent in advance. Loans are given for either seven days or 15 days.

After the due date, the company categorises the customers into various buckets. The customers in a lower bucket get a decent treatment but as the bucket category goes up the treatment gets harsher.

The call centres of the company abuse the customers in filthy language and threaten them with dire consequences. They even go to the extent of accessing the contacts of the customers from their phone and start abusing and threatening the family members, relatives and friends with calls and messages.

They also blackmail innocent people by sending fake legal notices. Telecallers also suggest victims make the repayments by taking loans from their other loan applications. The customer falls into their trap by taking loans in the other loan applications as suggested by telecallers and end up paying huge amounts.

The Cyber Crime Police Station, Rachakonda registered two cases against these loan applications in the recent past. The raid at the call centre was part of the investigation and further probe is on. The police are also trying to ascertain if these applications are linked to any petitions/complaints registered in the Commissionerate.

Mahesh M Bhagwat, Commissioner of Police, Rachakonda, along with P. Yadagiri, DCP Crimes and D.Srinivas, Addl. DCP Crimes, Sri. S. Harinath, Asst. Commissioner of Police K.V. Vijay Kumar, Inspector of Cyber Crimes investigated the matter.