VISAKHAPATNAM: The cybercrime police in Visakhapatnam have detained one person accused in a mobile loan application fraud involving at least Rs 100 crore. The racket came to light after a Visakhapatnam-based woman lodged a complaint, stating that she was being harassed by organisers of the Shuttle Loan app after she borrowed Rs 5,000.
The accused has been identified as Raju Jaya Simha Reddy, a resident of Madhapur in Hyderabad.
Disclosing the details of the case, Visakhapatnam City Police Commissioner Ch Srikant said the woman downloaded the app from Google Play Store and took a loan of Rs 5,000 on May 17.
The very next day, Rs 3,800 was credited into her account after the deduction of interest. The organisers gave her three days’ time to repay the amount.
Although she cleared the debt before the deadline, she was threatened and asked to pay 12,000. The woman immediately paid Rs 12,000 to avoid harassment. However, the organisers continued to trouble her and threatened to share her morphed pictures with her contacts. She had provided access to her contact list and gallery while downloading the app. The woman then lodged a complaint with the cybercrime police on May 24.
“Investigation into her complaint led to startling revelations. Cybercrime inspector Bhavani Prasad and his team tracked the account from which Rs 5,000 was credited. The account was attached with Canara Bank in Hyderabad. As per KYC, it was a firm account. We tracked the phone number and zeroed in on Simha Reddy. During interrogation, he spilt the beans about the loan app racket,” the police commissioner said.
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When Simha Reddy was facing severe financial problems, he came into contact with Kevin Wang from China through Facebook. He partnered with Wang and opened several current and firm bank accounts. The accused then provided KYC details and access for all the bank accounts to the loan app organisers to operate loan applications without any hassle.
“It has been learnt that Shuttle Loan app is linked to other Chinese loan apps. Simha Reddy opened 16 bank accounts, including 11 firm accounts, and gave access to the loan app organisers,” Srikant said and added that they communicated through Facebook and Telegram messenger. Transactions to the tune of approximately Rs 100 crore have been carried out by the organisers in the last six months, police said.
Terming it the biggest loan app fraud unravelled in the State so far, the police commissioner said, they will further investigate the case in coordination with the central agencies. There could be several victims of the Chinese loan apps, he noted. Srikant appealed to the victims to contact the police if they face harassment after borrowing.