06 May,2022 07:41 AM IST | Mumbai | Samiullah Khan
The loan recovery agents often resort to sending morphed photos of defaulters to kin
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The menace of loan recovery agents harassing people has seen a rapid increase with the Mumbai police filing two cases in the past 24 hours. In one case, a 38-year-old from Kurar, Malad East ended his life due to the incessant harassment over recovery of a loan he had never taken. In the other case, a Bandra resident filed a complaint after recovery agents sent his morphed images to his friends and relatives after he defaulted on EMIs. This is the second case of suicide in the past two months over harassment, humiliation through sharing of morphed images and blackmail by loan recovery agents.
Sandeep Koregaonkar, who worked for an imitation jewellery manufacturer, was chased by loan recovery agents who kept calling and abusing him and also shared his morphed photos with his friends and colleagues, which made his life increasingly difficult. This even after he told the callers that he had not taken a loan.
On April 27, he along with his brother Dattaguru even approached Kurar police to file a complaint in the matter, but the harassment did not stop. Fed up with the continuous slander, Sandeep took his life on Wednesday at his home.
Following a complaint by his brother, Kurar police registered a case against five unknown callers (recovery agents) linked to âHello Cash' app under sections 306 (abetment of suicide), 420 (cheating), 500 (defamation) of IPC and section 66(D) of IT Act.
In a similar case, a delivery executive from Bandra West lodged a complaint with the police after he learnt that the agents sent his morphed images to his wife, relatives and friends. Sohail Mohammed Shaikh, 23, told the police that six men had attached a note with the morphed picture which read: "This person had taken a loan and failed to repay on time."
Shaikh identified the six men as Anish Shaikh, Shaheen Mansoori, Shehzad Shaikh, Afzal Khan, Tariq Qureshi and Sheru Shaikh. Shaikh had taken two quick loans from two apps of Rs 3,500 and Rs 2,500 on April 23 as he was in urgent need of money. He said that the problem started on April 29 when one agent called and threatened to send messages to all his contacts saying he failed to repay the loan.
He, however, learnt about the morphed images from his wife on May 3 and decided to approach the police. A case has been filed under section 500 of the IPC and section 67 (publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act) of the IT against the six accused.
Last month, a 23-year-old woman registered a similar complaint at Charkop police station claiming 74 various loan shark app's recovery agents were calling her for recovery of a loan of Rs 11,000, taken from the app Easy Loan. The accused had resorted to the same modus of sharing her morphed images and pornographic videos to her contacts.
She told mid-day, "The surprising thing was that recovery agents of dozens of other loan apps are also calling and threatening me." Earlier in March, a 43-year-old woman committed suicide following similar humiliation, following which Bhayandar police had registered an abetment to suicide case against three loan apps and 13 accused.
Cyber expert Swapnil Patil told mid-day, "There are hundreds of such applications which claim to give easy loans to people without any conditions and later blackmail them in the name of recovery. I have found around 80 such applications on Google Play Store."
He added that most of these companies claim they are non-banking financial companies approved by the RBI, but only a handful of such apps actually have the RBI nod. Warning citizens, he said, "Once installed, these apps get access to your phone data. In addition, they ask you to provide Aadhaar and PAN card numbers for the loan as well as seek a photo and video for verification purposes, which they later morph to blackmail."
"I request people to never fall in the trap of such loan apps. And even if someone has come, there is no need to panic, just switch off your phone and complain to the nearest police station immediately," Patil said.
DCP (Zone 11) Somnath Gharge, said, "My request to the victims is to approach the nearest police station immediately after getting such threatening calls by recovery agents. We have instructed all police stations to register an offence and investigate the matter fast. We have put our best officers on duty for such online fraud cases."
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No. of loans availed by the Bandra victim
