HYDERABAD: Telangana police have arrested two men from Bengaluru, who were extorting money from victims of Chinese loan apps, establishing the fact that Chinese fraudsters were back in business again.
The arrested accused have been identified as Shabbir Alam (36) and Umakant Yadav (30), both residents of Karnataka. According to police officials, the duo previously worked for a Chinese national, Chen Chaoping, who ran a loan app fraud network from Bengaluru before fleeing to China.
Police raided their Bengaluru call centre and seized 29 cell phones, 73 laptops, two debit cards and as many hard discs. Police found out that in 2020, Chen operated the same call centre in Bengaluru. At that time, Shabbir was supervisor and Umakant worked as IT manager of the call centre. After some arrests were made by Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police in December 2020 and January 2021, Chen fled to China and closed the call centre.
“Two months later, he called Shabbir and Umakant and asked them to run the call centre for new apps. The duo hired 100 tele-callers to extort money from their victims,” ACP KVM Prasad said.
Cops: Gangs involved in 50 cases
Police suspect that the gang might be involved in several of the 50 cases registered in the recent past. According to Central Crime Station joint CP Gajarao Bhupal, the two offenders were providing services for loan applications Ocean Rupee, Life Wallet, Maloo Wallet, Elephant Cash, Box Cash and Dutta Rupee, under the sole supervision of Chen, who is currently in China.
“The accused hosted the loan apps in Google play store. When innocent people seeking loan downloaded the apps, the fraudsters obtained permissions of gallery, contact list and locations before providing loans for a short period,” Bhupal said.
“Once the due date approaches, the accused start calling the victims to pay the borrowed amount along with a huge interest. When the victims become incapable of repaying, the accused would threaten them saying they would post their morphed photos on social media platforms and call their friends and relatives,” he added. Two cases were registered against the accused in 2021 based on the complaints of a 30-year-old woman from Retibowli and another man. The woman took about Rs 2 lakh loan and when she was unable to repay in seven days, the accused started calling her on WhatsApp from different numbers, abusing her in vulgar language.
The arrested accused have been identified as Shabbir Alam (36) and Umakant Yadav (30), both residents of Karnataka. According to police officials, the duo previously worked for a Chinese national, Chen Chaoping, who ran a loan app fraud network from Bengaluru before fleeing to China.
Police raided their Bengaluru call centre and seized 29 cell phones, 73 laptops, two debit cards and as many hard discs. Police found out that in 2020, Chen operated the same call centre in Bengaluru. At that time, Shabbir was supervisor and Umakant worked as IT manager of the call centre. After some arrests were made by Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police in December 2020 and January 2021, Chen fled to China and closed the call centre.
“Two months later, he called Shabbir and Umakant and asked them to run the call centre for new apps. The duo hired 100 tele-callers to extort money from their victims,” ACP KVM Prasad said.
Cops: Gangs involved in 50 cases
Police suspect that the gang might be involved in several of the 50 cases registered in the recent past. According to Central Crime Station joint CP Gajarao Bhupal, the two offenders were providing services for loan applications Ocean Rupee, Life Wallet, Maloo Wallet, Elephant Cash, Box Cash and Dutta Rupee, under the sole supervision of Chen, who is currently in China.
“The accused hosted the loan apps in Google play store. When innocent people seeking loan downloaded the apps, the fraudsters obtained permissions of gallery, contact list and locations before providing loans for a short period,” Bhupal said.
“Once the due date approaches, the accused start calling the victims to pay the borrowed amount along with a huge interest. When the victims become incapable of repaying, the accused would threaten them saying they would post their morphed photos on social media platforms and call their friends and relatives,” he added. Two cases were registered against the accused in 2021 based on the complaints of a 30-year-old woman from Retibowli and another man. The woman took about Rs 2 lakh loan and when she was unable to repay in seven days, the accused started calling her on WhatsApp from different numbers, abusing her in vulgar language.