2 Chinese held in loan app case, ₹300cr under lens

2 Chinese held in loan app case, ₹300cr under lens

₹5,000 To ₹50,000 Given To 1L People At 36% Interest

A.Selvaraj@timesgroup.com

Chennai:  03.01.2021

The Chennai police have arrested four people, including two Chinese nationals, and unearthed an extensive network of illegal micro-financing apps offering instant loans at interest rates as high as 36%. According to police sources, more than two dozen illegal apps which could have cumulatively disbursed ₹300 crore in sums ranging from ₹5,000 to ₹50,000 to more than one lakh people across the country have been unearthed.

“The source of the money and to whom and how was the principal and interest credited back is not known and is being probed,” an official said. Two bank accounts with ₹48 lakh and ₹1.96 crore balance in ICICI Bank and RBL Bank branches in Bengaluru have been frozen by police.

While two Chinese nationals Xia Ya Mau, 38, and Yuvan Lun, 28, have been arrested, two others, Hong and Wandish, managed to escape to Singapore.

Two others from Karnataka — S Pramoda of Doopanahalli and C R Pavan of Chikkanahally — too were arrested and remanded in judicial custody in Chennai. “Though the Karnataka duo were cited as ‘directors’ of many of these lending companies, they were paid ₹20,000 as monthly salary, while the Chinese took full possession of cheque leaves, ATM debit cards and the company’s internet banking access credentials,” said a senior official of Central Crime Branch. A CCB team worked on the racket for 20 days and camped in Bengaluru for about a week to nab the suspects.

The Chennai breakthrough has come after the suicide of at least four men in Telangana and one in Bengaluru owing to shaming and humiliation meted out to them by recovery agents engaged by these loan app firms.

Xia Ya Mau & Yuvan Lun

Instant debt trap: T’gana man kills self

In yet another tragedy triggered by the instant debt trap, a 36-year-old warehouse labourer in Hyderabad took his own life on Saturday after being allegedly threatened and then shamed in front of family and friends for defaulting on repayment of a loan procured through a lending app. G Chandramohan’s death is the fifth suicide in Telangana linked to loan apps in a month. Family members suspect Chandramohan may have borrowed between ₹60,000 and ₹70,000. P 11

Over 100 hired at ₹8K/month to harass loan defaulters

At least five more Chinese nationals have been arrested in different parts of the country, including Delhi, in recent weeks.

Commending the CCB team, Chennai city commissioner of police Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal said: “We are looking into the flow of money to the company -- True Kindle Technologies Solutions Private Limited -- floated by the Chinese. The two arrested Chinese nationals have been staying even after the expiry of their visa period.”

Another officer said they would engage a translator to interrogate the suspects and obtain more information about their apps after taking them into police custody. The laptops and mobiles seized from them will be scruitinized.

The officer said CCB has sent requests to Google Play Store to suspend 25 mobile applications as they are illegal and existed against the investment as well as lending norms in the country.

Pramoda and Pavan told the CCB sleuths that they came across an online advertisement posted by the Chinese requiring them to set up a call centre in Bengaluru. “Their role was to register a company and recruit tele-callers, while the money partwastaken careof by theChinese. More than 100 telecallers were recruited at₹8,000 as monthly salary andthey were given a targetof at least 10 loan referrals every day. Their job was to make abusive phone calls to defaulting customers, access the contact list of the defaulters andshamethem by sending messagesto alltheir contacts,” said a CCB official.

After three of the customers caught in the debt trap committed suicide in a single month, Hyderabad police have arrested a Chinese national and15 others and registered 27 cases.