Instant loan apps cases: Chinese national among two arrested

Hyderabad, Jan 13 (PTI): Two people, including a Chinesenational were arrested on Wednesday in connection with theongoing probe by police against instant app-based lenders,accused of harassing borrowers over repayment.

They were nabbed from Thane in Maharashtra by a team ofthe Rachakonda Police Commissionerate after it had in Decemberlast year busted a Pune-based call center, which was used torecover loan amounts from the borrowers, police said.

With this, a total of four Chinese nationals have beenarrested, as also several others and 50 cases have beenregistered, following complaints from people.

''The arrested Chinese national came to India in July 2019on a business visa and worked as a representative on behalf ofthree Chinese nationals, who are Directors of some Microfinance loan apps companies,'' Rachakonda Commissioner ofPolice Mahesh M Bhagwat said.

The crackdown against instant money lending apps firmswas launched after six cases of suicides, due to harassment bysuch companies were reported in Telangana since December 2020.

Police said the lending companies, through instant loanapps, offer loans to people and levy huge interest andprocessing charges, among others.

They then resort to systematic abusing, harassing andthreatening the defaulters through the call centres operatingfrom across the country.

Police have also engaged experts for data analysis forstudying the voluminous data as a preliminary probe into thefinancial transactions of the online loan app firms revealed1.4 crore transactions worth nearly Rs 21,000 crore.