Instant loan apps cases: Chinese national among two arrested

A Chinese national along with two others were nabbed in connection with the ongoing probe by police against instant app-based lenders, accused of harassing borrowers over repayment.

Hyderabad:Two people, including a Chinese national were arrested on Wednesday in connection with the ongoing probe by police against instant app-based lenders, accused of harassing borrowers over repayment.

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

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

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

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

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

They then resort to systematic abusing, harassing and threatening the defaulters through the call centres operating from across the country.

Police have also engaged experts for data analysis for studying the voluminous data as a preliminary probe into the financial transactions of the online loan app firms revealed 1.4 crore transactions worth nearly Rs 21,000 crore.