BHUBANESWAR: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch on Friday arrested the director of Good Start Business Services Private Limited Nitin Mallik from New Delhi for his alleged involvement in running fake loan applications with the help of a few Chinese nationals.
A native of Odisha, Shakti Prasad Dash, had lodged a complaint in the EOW alleging harassment by the officials of digital loan app - Kredit Gold.
After downloading Kredit Gold, the complainant had received Rs 9,000 loan amount.
The staff of the loan app asked Dash to return Rs 15,000 just four days after providing him the loan.
He started receiving calls and messages from different mobile phone numbers which were reportedly linked to Good Start Business Services.
The callers harassed and attempted to extort money from the complainant. EOW's investigation revealed that Good Start is not registered as a non-banking financial company and it was illegally operating as a digital lender through various loan applications including Kredit Gold.
Kredit Gold has been downloaded more than one lakh times. He was reportedly in regular contact with three Chinese nationals and getting a lump sum amount from them towards his salary for lending/recovering money through the fake loan apps.
The accused has cheated several customers in Odisha and other states.
"Various incriminating materials like copies of passports of the Chinese nationals, WhatsApp chats and e-mails have been seized from Mallik. Besides, agreements between Chinese firms and telecom service providers in the country were also seized from him," said an EOW officer.
The accused was wanted by different law enforcement agencies including Mumbai Police, he added.
On the request of EOW, the Bureau of Immigration had recently issued a lookout circular against Liu Yi, a Chinese national and one of the main accused in the mobile loan app scam.