Twelve people linked to a Chinese digital lending app through which they duped several people and harassed them into repaying 10 to 20 times of the loan amount were arrested by the cyber cell of the Noida Police on Wednesday, an official said.

Through the app, the accused lent small amounts of Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 to people but would then threaten to share their objectionable morphed images, pressuring them into repaying higher amounts, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Cell) Abhishek Verma said. The call centre was set up in Sector 63 of Noida and police seized Rs 1.50 lakh cash, 36 desktop computers, 15 laptops, eight smart phones, 135 SIM cards, among other items from the spot, he said.

According to police, those held have been identified as Punit Tuli, Mohd Afzal, Jitendra, Neeraj Lal, Shivam, Azeem, Aakash Srivastava, Sumit, Arun Singh, Siddharth Ojha, Rajnessh Jha and Bharat.

Tuli, the mastermind of the gang, was associated with a Chinese national named Dave, and the app had its server in China, a police official privy to the probe said.

"The Noida Police had of late been receiving complaints of fraud through Chinese load apps. People claimed that their morphed photos and videos were being used to threaten them," Verma told reporters.

"The cyber cell and the Noida Sector 63 police station worked on the cases and busted the call centre named Marvel Entertainment," he said.

"We have arrested 12 people. They were in contact with a Chinese person and would run a web portal. They called up people who took loan from the app and any person who dilly-dallied in repaying the loan, these accused shared their morphed pictures and videos in a bid to extort money from them," the officer said.This whole racket was run online and the police are in the process of further examining the details ,” he said.