In October 2021, Jafar Khan, 26, urgently needed some money to pay the hospital bills for his wife Shafi’s delivery. A resident of Pune, a tech hub around 150 kilometers from financial capital Mumbai, Khan had heard, from a friend, about a mobile app called Rich Cash.
“I just shared my bank details [on the app] and applied for a loan of 5,000 rupees (around $65),” Khan said.
But when Khan went to repay the loan a week later, he could not find the app on his phone or anywhere on the Google Play store. Khan said that the app vanished for months.
Then, in February 2022, a man claiming to be an agent from Rich Cash called Khan, asking for 10,000 rupees — double the initial loan — citing growing interest rates. The agent threatened Khan that if he didn’t pay up, there would be consequences. Khan didn’t have the money and told the person on the phone so. The next morning, a friend called Khan to inform him that he had received some intimate photos of him. The Rich Cash agent had somehow accessed Khan’s phone book and sent his personal photos to the contacts in Khan’s WhatsApp account whose names started with A. A panicked Khan quickly arranged 7,350 rupees and paid the agent. “I also shared a screenshot of the money sent with him, and he assured this case was closed,” he said.
“The agent “started calling my contacts, cursing them, and sending them obscene photos of mine. He told me that he is not scared of the police.”
But…
