Chinese national, 3 others arrested for loan apps fraud in Telangana

A Chinese national and three members of a gang have been arrested in an instant loan apps fraud case at Cyberabad.

Cyber Crime Police, Cyberabad raided a call centre named "Cubevo Technology Private Limited" (Skyline) located in the city headed by a Chinese national and arrested four members including another Chinese national.

As per the police, its head office is located in Delhi named "Skyline Innovations Technologies India Private Limited" which is registered in ROC, Gurgaon and its Directors are Zixia Zhang and Umapati @ Ajay and they developed 11 Instant Loan applications which offer loans to individuals and collect huge repayments (including interest, processing charges, GST, Default charges and once loan period is over they charge 1% penalty) and also resort to systematic abusing, harassing, threatening of the defaulters through call centers run by them. They even blackmail the borrowers by sending fake legal notices to their relatives and family members.

Recently Cyber Crime Police Station, Cyberabad have registered eight cases against these loan applications and investigated into.

According to police, On December 17 a complaint was received from a person in which he stated that due to his financial needs he searched in Google and downloaded the Instant Loan App and uploaded Aadhaar card, PAN card, self-authentication photo, three months bank statement and took a loan of Rs 2,015 for 7 days and after deducting the amount of Rs 415 for GST and processing fee, they disbursed Rs 1600 as loan amount on 25-08-2020, after that he received calls from different mobile numbers and advised to take instant loan from their applications.

On their advise, he took a total loan amount of Rs 1,20,000 from 28 instant loan applications. Even though, he paid the loan amount of Rs 2,00,000 with interest, he received calls from different mobile numbers and tele callers started making abusive and threatening calls and also blackmailed him of sending legal notices. Therefore, he requested to take necessary action. On the basis of the above complaint, a case has been registered.

The accused Zixia Zhang, a Chinese national and Umapati @ Ajay are absconding. While Yi Bai @ Dennis, a Chinese national, resident at Delhi, native of Jiangxi, Shanghai, South West China, Satya Pal Khyalia, resident of Delhi native of Sikhar District, Rajasthan, riddh Malhotra, resident of Hyderabad, native of Rajasthan, and Murathoti Richie Hemanth Seth resident of Hyderabad native of Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh have been arrested.

List of loan applications are Loan Gram, Cash Train, Cash Bus, AAA Cash, Super Cash, Mint Cash, Happy Cash, Loan Card, Repay One, Money Box, Monkey box etc.

Zixia Zhang with the help of his Singapore-based company developed 11 Instant loan applications offering loans to individuals aged between 20-40 years with high interest rates. Then in the month of December 2019, Zixia Zhang along with Umapati established a company called Digipeergo Tech Pvt Ltd initially and then established Sky Line Innovation Technology India Private Limited and offered loans through the above mentioned applications.

To get the repayments from the loan borrowers they have set up four more call centres in various parts of the country. Following are the list of Call Centres operating in various cities. Topfun Technologies Pvt Ltd, registered at Goa and Office located at Gurgaon. Fasmate Technology Services Pvt ltd, Office located at Gurgaon. Cubevo Technology Private Limited, Office located at Hyderabad and Best Shine Technology Private limited, office located at Hyderabad.

These applications are developed in such a way that on installing these apps they get the access to the contacts, mobile information and other data in the device. These applications collect the Id proofs, PAN card, KYC documents, bank account details of the customers.

They check the genuineness of the documents and disburse small amounts in the form of loan to their bank accounts by debiting the processing charges and GST i.e., 25-30% in advance. There will be two categories of loan period 1) 7 days and 2) 15 days. On completion of due date, the customer is put into a bucket list (S-0, S-1, S-2, S-3, M2, M3, X etc.,). The lesser the bucket the loanee is in, the lesser the abusive treatment is and abuse and harassment increases with the bigger bucket.

They abuse the customers in filthy language and threaten them with dire consequences. They even go to the extent of accessing the contacts of the customers from their phone and start abusing and threatening the family members, relatives and friends with calls and messages.

Further fraudsters have setup call centres in different parts of south India, where the tele callers make calls to the customers who are categorised into different buckets and ask for huge repayments in an abusive and threatening manner. They also blackmail innocents by sending fake legal notices. Tele callers also suggest victims to make the repayments by taking loan from their other loan applications. Customer falls into their trap by taking loans in the other loan applications as suggested by tele callers and end up paying huge amounts and stuck in a never ending cycle.

So far in the investigation whether these applications are connected to any NBFC or not is not clear. Police have seized two laptops, four cell phones, and Rs 2 crore.

( With inputs from ANI )