Odisha EOW freezes Rs 1.45 cr in illegal digital loan app case

Bhubaneswar, Nov 19 The economic offence wing (EOW) of Odisha police has frozen an amount of Rs 1.45 crore of one of the accused in illegal digital loan app scam.

The money is lying in the accounts of accused Nitin Malik. Good Start Business Pvt. Ltd. and Right Start Business Pvt. Ltd. of which accused Nitin is the director, are not registered as Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) with RBI, a police official said on Saturday.

The companies are illegally operating as digital lenders. It is suspected that Nitin is a part of an international gang, which runs at least 10 such illegal loan apps, the police official said.

The main objective of said company is to purchase and run virtual phone numbers from BSNL, Airtel and Vodafone to be used for running and facilitating the lending and recovery through different loan apps.

Nitin was in direct and regular touch with at least three Chinese nationals and used to get a huge sum/salary for this job.

The accused Nitin was arrested on July 13, 2022 and is still in judicial custody. Another accused Neerav Gupta has also been arrested in the case and now in judicial custody.