Mumbai police teams leave for Odisha and Delhi to hunt down fraud loan sharks

A dedicated team of 12 cops has been formed to investigate the suicide of a 38-year-old man from Kurar, Malad East on May 4 and similar incidents

Mumbai: As the city continues to witness a rise in the number of harassment cases involving loan recovery agents, the Mumbai police have finally taken a step to address the issue.

According to cops, as part of their recovery process, the loan sharks often resort to harassing and slandering the borrowers by sharing their morphed photos or videos with their family and friends. (Stock Pic)

A dedicated team of 12 cops has been formed to investigate the suicide of a 38-year-old man from Kurar, Malad East on May 4 and similar incidents.

The teams have left for Odisha and New Delhi to hunt down the loan recovery agents, hired by loan apps, whose harassment allegedly led to the suicide. According to cops, as part of their recovery process, the loan sharks often resort to harassing and slandering the borrowers by sharing their morphed photos or videos with their family and friends. Unable to deal with the continuous harassment and blackmail, many have died by suicide, just like the Malad man, who had not even taken a loan.

Somnath Gharge, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 12 said, “We have formed teams involving two police inspectors and ten police constables and are searching for the accused.” Most of these loan sharks operate from outside Maharashtra.

On April 26, he borrowed ₹3,500 from the application. However, immediately after May 2, he started getting calls to repay the loan and the callers even shared a link to pay the money.

“However, the link was not active, so the LIC agent called the number back and asked to share any bank account number to repay the loan. Accordingly, one account number was shared with him and he paid the loan amount. Immediately, he realised that the person deleted the account number once the money was received,” said a police officer from Kurar police station.

Later, the victim started getting calls again to repay the money. He was even threatened by the people on the phone that if he does not pay the money, they could make his obscene video and upload it on social media.

“The accused went ahead and even uploaded an obscene video morphed by them of the victim,” said a police officer.

The Kurar police have registered a case for cheating, punishment for criminal intimidation, and under various sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

In the first case reported on May 4, an imitation jewellery worker died by suicide over the alleged harassment of loan recovery agents.

On May 8, a private company employee who had taken a loan of ₹3,800 was asked to pay ₹7000 by recovery agents, but when he refused, they circulated his morphed photos over a loan of ₹3,800.

On May 10, in the third case, a 36-year-old man had downloaded an app called Jane coin Loan app. He had applied for a loan; however, his request was rejected; and later, he was given ₹6,362 as a loan though he had already deleted the application.

“The victim paid around ₹11,004, however, despite that his morphed photos were circulated among his contact list. He was threatened and demanded to pay another ₹5,000 which he refused,” said a police officer.

Meanwhile, the Dahisar police and Samta-Nagar police have also registered such cases recently.