Four of six-member loan app gangs from Maharashtra arrested

Police probing whether the loan apps have links to other countries

The Krishna district police busted the activities of two online loan apps, operating in Andhra Pradesh, and arrested four members of the apps on Saturday.

The accused, who reportedly offered loans to two women by collecting the bank accounts, Aadhaar, PAN and other details, allegedly threatened to send their morphed photos to their friends and family members, said Superintendent of Police P. Joshua.

The arrested have been identified as Nilesh Vilas Gorade, Amit Sunil Gavli, Sarfaraj Azeej Shaik and Ramdas Dattatreya Daradas, natives of Sinnar taluk and village, Maharashtra. Another accused, Omkar Shankar Mule is in jail and one more accused is at large.

Giving the details of the cases at a press conference here on Saturday, the SP said the accused allegedly lured the victims of Penamaluru and Atkuru villages, and asked them to enrol on Well Credit and FF Loan Apps last month. They offered ₹7,000 and ₹3,360 loan amount, and made them repay ₹16,270 and ₹7,000 respectively in just a few days.

Photographs morphed

The accused allegedly sent the morphed photographs of the loanees to their friends and kin and allegedly threatened them to send more amount into their (accused) accounts.

Unable to bear the torture, the victims lodged complaints with Penamaluru and Atkuru police stations. Special teams headed by Additional SP Venkata Ramanjaneyulu and Gannavaram DSP K. Vijay Paul, were constituted, which tracked the bank accounts, phone numbers, bank transactions and other links and zeroed in on the accused at Sinnar village in Maharashtra.

Modus operandi

“The modus operandi of the accused is to lure the poor and those who are in dire need of money for health emergency and other purposes. They will assure to give loan with just a click without insisting for any documents, and later collect more than double the amount. After a few days, the loan operators will harass and blackmail the loanees by sending the obscene photos to their friends demanding them to send more money,” said Mr. Joshua.

“A hunt is on to arrest the remaining accused in the two cases,” Mr. Vijay Paul said and appealed to the public not to borrow loans from online and private loan apps. Police are investigating whether the online loan operators had links to other countries, and their operations in other States, if any, the SP said.