Hyderabad: Police in Hyderabad have launched a massive operation against private companies offering “instant online loans” after three people died by suicide, apparently due to harassment by lenders.

As a follow-up to the investigation into loan application fraud, Hyderabad police arrested a Chinese national by the name of Zhu Wei (Lambo) on December 30. According to cops, the accused was intercepted at Delhi airport as he tried to leave the country.

Lambo (27) belongs to Jiangxi of China. He was the head of four loan applications namely Aglow Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Liufang Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Nabloom Technologies Pvt. Ltd and Pinprint Technologies Pvt. Ltd. In addition, another person by the name of K. Nagaraju from Kurnool was arrested. The man would have played a key role in the operation of the call centers.

“A preliminary investigation into financial transactions revealed that nearly 1.4 crore of transactions worth almost Rs. 21,000 crore have taken place so far. This volume of transactions has taken place on gateways of payment and bank accounts linked to these companies. A large number of international transactions have also taken place via coins. A large portion of the transactions have taken place within the last 6 months. Further investigation continues on financial transactions, ”Cops said.

Interrogation of the arrested employee revealed that a Chinese national by the name of Yuan Yuan @ Sissi @ Jennifer is the person who set up operations in India and is currently abroad.

Previously, cops in Hyderabad, following a raid, had registered nearly 16 FIRs regarding these unauthorized applications. Cybercrime Police raided two sites in Udyog Vihar, Gurgaon and three sites in Hyderabad which operated call centers for these fraudulent applications and arrested 11 people.

According to police, call centers were used to persuade, harass and intimidate defaulting debtors. They were managed on behalf of four companies: Liufang Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Hotful Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Pinprint Technologies and Nabloom Technologies Pvt. Ltd. They were headquartered in Bangalore.

Hyderabad’s call centers employed nearly 600 telephone operators, while Gurgaon’s call center employed 500 people. The heads and important members of these call centers were arrested, including directors, directors, center heads and deputy directors.

Police discovered that callers had received instructions from their bosses in Indonesia and they suspect the whole operation is being led by Chinese nationals. Raids on call centers led to the seizure of nearly 700 laptops, servers and computer systems. Further investigation is underway to unravel the network of financial transactions, funding and technology base.

In the past month, three people have committed suicide after falling prey to online loan applications. Shaken by the deaths, Telangana police issued a notice asking people not to download these predatory money-lending apps. On December 22, detectives at Cyberabad cybercrime station arrested six people in connection with the racketeering of instant loan applications.

How Onion Credit and Credfox Technologies deceived people

The gang offered small loans through different apps and collected money by harassing and blackmailing the victims. Said loan applications are available on Google Play. Several people fell into their trap and were cheated.

Police collected ROC documents (MoA and AoA) and certificates of incorporation from the two companies Onion Credit and Credfox Technologies, both owned by Sharath Chandra. He had established two offices in Hyderabad with 110 employees. The two companies had entered into agreements with nine non-bank financial corporations (NBFCs) to acquire clients for NBFCs, market for NBFCs, verify clients’ KYC and initial creditworthiness, granting loans, and disbursement and payment. loan recovery from customers.

The companies had developed their own apps in their offices located within the Raidurgam limits and placed them in the Google Play Store for easy download. The companies had designed several mobile applications such as Cash Mama, Loan Zone, Dhana Dhan Loan, Cash Up, Cash Bus, Mera Loan and Cash Zone. They sold two apps – Cash Bus and Cash Up – to Asia Inno Networks Pvt. Ltd., Delhi, and two others -Mera Loan and Cash Zone – at Blue Shield Fintech Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore. During this time, they operated three applications: Cash Mama linked to Onion Credit and Dhana Dhan Loan and Loan Zone linked to Credfox. Both companies currently have 1.5 lakh of clients and around 70,000 active clients.

After granting a loan to the clients from their application for a period of seven days, they divide all the clients into different categories of buckets: at maturity, it is called the J-0 bucket, after the deadline of day 1 on day 3, it is the S1 bucket, from day 4 to 10 it is the S2 bucket and from day 11 to 30 it is the S3 bucket.

To collect the loan from clients, they use different methods depending on the compartment in which the clients are located. The less the number of days after the due date, the milder the treatment and the more severe the number of days after the due date. Businesses also access customer contacts and send WhatsApp messages to friends and family to defame the defaulter.

Although the Dhana Dhan app is not linked to any NBFC, Cash Mama and Loan Zone have partnered with nine NBFCs – Superior Finlease Limited, New Delhi (Loan Zone); Lord Krishna Financial Services, New Delhi (Cash Mama); Usha Financial Services Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi (Cash Mama); i2i Technologies (RNVP Technologies Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi (Cash Mama); Zavron Finance Pvt. Ltd., Nagpur (Cash Mama); UMB Securities Limited, Bangalore (Loan Zone); Fair Assets Technologies India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi (Cash Mama); Liqui Loans (NDX P2P Pvt. Ltd.,), Mumbai (Cash Mama); and KRAZYBEE Services Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore (Cash Mama) which are listed in RBI.

The companies have two nodal accounts including a nodal account which aggregates the amount of NBFCs and disburses 75-80% of the loan amount by deducting various fees such as processing fees and GST. The loan amount paid by customers goes into another node account which in turn pays it to the NBFC. They charge 35 percent PA interest rate from customers who repay the loan amount on time. They impose huge penalties on clients who default and start harassing them after they pass their due date.

Notices have been sent to all NBFCs and their general managers. Google has been asked to remove the apps due to their criminal activities.

Police seized three laptops, three desktop computers and 22 cell phones from those arrested. Eighteen bank accounts worth Rs. 1.52 crore were also frozen.

Public notice

Cybercrime Police have issued a notice asking people not to download instant loan apps from the Play Store or other sources that do not have the proper licenses from government authorities. “Do not give your personal and banking credentials to anyone. Please read the terms and conditions and check the licenses of the companies offering the loans and check if they have obtained permission from the relevant authorities like the RBI and the district collector.” , indicates the notice. read.

It also warned people to download apps that request access to contacts, files, and gallery.