With the arrest of eight people, including a woman, the Delhi Police on Sunday claimed to have busted a gang of extortionists, who had duped several people in crores through a Chinese loan Application fraud.
According to K P S Malhotra, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of Special Cell, a complaint was received by the police in which a woman alleged that she was being abused and threatened by some unknown persons.
“The complainant said that the accused were sending her morphed and vulgar photographs to her family, friends and relatives through social media. She had taken a loan from one Loan App, namely Cash Advance (Danakredit) and she repaid the same in time. Despite repayment of the loan, she started getting threat calls and messages on WhatsApp from Cash Advance employees,” said the DCP.
It was further observed by the complainant that the alleged scamsters were using the profile picture of a highly 'senior police officer'.
“A case under sections 354A, 509, 384, 385, 419, 420 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code at the Special Cell police station and investigation was taken up,” said the DCP.
“During the investigation, the police team established money trails of alleged transactions and it was found that the money was being transferred in a current account which had been opened in the name of Balaji Technology. Further it was found that the name of Balaji technology was used at a shop of bike repair. The proprietor of the account was found in the name of Rohit Kumar, a resident of Rajeev Nagar, Delhi,” said the DCP adding that in the account approximately Rs 8.45 crore were credited in just 15 days and the same was transferred to other accounts simultaneously.
“Subsequently, the police on March 13 conducted coordinated raids at Pitampura and Rohini in Delhi and Rohit Kumar, Vividh Kumar, Puneet and Manish were arrested.
On their instance, another accused Puneet Kumar, his wife Divya who was also found involved in the case were arrested. Later on the next day, accused Krishana alias Ravi Shankar was arrested from Jodhpur, Rajasthan on March 14,” said the DCP.
“Krishana is the main mastermind in India. It was further found that all the cheated amounts are being sent to China through cryptocurrency by accused Krishana. Crypto accounts of three Chinese nationals have been identified where the cheated amount was sent through cryptocurrency,” said the DCP.
“During further investigation, another raid was conducted at Gurugram, Haryana and one accused, namely Sumit was arrested, who used to make calls to victims through a fraudulently obtained WhatsApp number,” said the DCP.
“During the interrogation, it was revealed that the app, after being downloaded and permitted to to capture, contact list, photo gallery and other personal data of the phone of the loan seeker, all their data got transferred to the Chinese servers,” said the DCP.
“Once this process was completed, the fraudsters immediately got the loan amount transferred in the account of the loan seeker. One team used to track such loan seekers and another would call the loan seekers and their associates like relative friends, etc., through different mobile numbers to refund the money from the loan seeker. Even after refunding of the money, the alleged accused used to extort more money from the loan seeker and also started sharing the morphed vulgar photos of the loan seeker to his family, relatives and friends to pressurise the victims to pay more money,” said the DCP.
While another team of the accused used to manage the financial transactions. After receiving the extortion amount in the bank, the accused used to transfer the money to their masters who are sitting in China, Hong Kong, Dubai and Nepal after converting into cryptocurrency. All the gang members were getting their share according to their role and their performance,” the DCP added.