Instant loan app gang busted by Gurugram cyber police, 9 arrested

A gang involved in extorting money by providing instant loans to people through an online app was busted by cyber police, officials said on Thursday.

Police arrested nine persons of the gang, including three owners and a manager of the app, they said.

They allegedly extorted money from those who did not repay the loans by morphing their photos and threatening to upload them on social media platforms, police said.

Police have recovered eight mobiles, four CPUs and a box of SIM cards from their possession, they added.

According to police, a woman filed a complaint on April 3 that she had availed a loan of Rs 3,000 through an online app, Finsara. As she was not able to pay the loan on time, the loan app company harassed her by posting "dirty posts" on her Facebook and repeatedly posting "objectionable photos" on WhatsApp, she said in the complaint.

They threatened to send the photos to her family members if she did not pay the money, she added.

Police said based on the complaint, a case was registered under relevant sections at Cyber Crime (West) Police Station.

A team led by SHO Naveen Kumar busted the gang and arrested the nine accused from Udyog Vihar area last late night.

They have been identified as Gaurav Wadhwa of Sirsa, Rahul Jain of Dwarka in Delhi, Rohan Palha of Sector 54, Gurugram, Rohit Kumar of Darbhanga in Bihar, Brijender Singh of Uttar Pradesh, Pawan Kumar of Alwar in Rajasthan, Avnish Giri of Azamgarh in UP, Shishu Kumar of Dhanbad in Jharkhand and Vivek, a native of Bihar's chapra, police said.

During interrogation, police found that Wadwa, Jain and Palha are the owners of the loan app company. Rohit Kumar is the company's manager, Brijendra Singh and Pawan Kumar are "team leaders" and Avnish Giri, Shishu Kumar and Ritesh are "recovery agents".

''To recover loans from people who failed to repay the loan, they had hired people, said Siddhant Jain, DCP (cyber).

They made the recovery by morphing the victim's photo and threatening to send it to social media platforms and his family members, he said.

"For this, team leaders get Rs 25,000 per month and recovery agents get Rs 14,000 per month. We are questioning the accused and trying to clarify how many people were duped by this gang. Further probe is underway," the DCP said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)