Officials of the Mumbai Crime Branch’s Cyber police have busted an “international loan app fraud” as part of which a gang of at least 14 persons, arrested in June and July, duped several Indians to the tune of Rs 300 to Rs 350 crore, police said. At least six of the accused were using cryptocurrency which, they suspect, was used to siphon off money to the “masterminds sitting abroad”, they added.
Since last year, thousands of people across India have fallen prey to loan apps operating illegally, prompting the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to initiate the process of creating new guidelines to deal with the menace.
The enormity of the fraud came under spotlight after a salesman, 38-year-old Sandeep Korgavkar, died by suicide on May 4 this year due to alleged extortion and sexual harassment by loan recovery agents. The accused allegedly called Korgavkar over 50 times and sent his morphed nude photos to people in his locality as well as colleagues. Before ending his life, Korgavkar had approached the Kurar police, which had registered a “non-cognizable” complaint. Following his death, the cyber police started investigating cases of loan app frauds.
One of the cases investigated by cyber police was of a man who took Rs 3.85 lakh from as many as 10 apps. Like Korgavkar, he was harassed by people who called him from 50 different numbers and extorted Rs 15 lakh from him. The cyber police traced the first accused Sudhakar Reddy, 25, to Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh on June…
