A number of police stations have reported cases registered against the same phone numbers
According to the LT Marg police, the arrests are expected to lead to the resolution of other fraud cases. Representation pic
The LT Marg police have arrested two suspects from Karnataka in connection with a loan app scam. The complainant in the case is a 50-year-old man who had taken loans from 40-50 apps and repaid the amount but was continuously harassed by the fraudsters who used morphed his pictures to blackmail him.
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The suspects—Salman Riyaz Hadnur, 19, and Mohammed Ali Haider Ali Shaikh, 21—are both residents of Bijapur in Karnataka. Hadnur has appeared for his first-year commerce exams while Shaikh is in his final year of graduation in science.
According to the complainant, he had taken loans from 40-50 apps between November 2022 and February. The total loan amount was Rs 2,93,700 and he received Rs 1,95,390 after the deduction of applicable charges. The man repaid the entire loan amount but the fraudsters continued to threaten him saying they would circulate morphed pictures of him unless he paid more. They induced him to pay more than R5 lakh but the harassment continued.
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In February, the man approached the LT Marg police alleging that morphed pictures of him were being circulated among his friends by some unknown persons who were threatening to send these to his family members if he refused to pay. The cyber wing—led by Assistant Police Inspector Prakash Patil and constable Santosh Pawar—then took over the case.
“The suspects used more than two dozen accounts to transfer the loan amount repaid. After each transaction, they would delete the beneficiary details and UPI account information,” said an officer privy to the investigation. With the help of technical analysis, the police also discovered that the suspects had been using multiple fake SIM cards with the same IMEI number, but were unable to obtain any information regarding them. The suspects were then placed under surveillance and one of them made the mistake of dialing a local number in Karnataka, which led to his identification.
Further investigation revealed that Hadnur and Shaikh were working under a supervisor who is currently on the run. The police suspect that the supervisor has connections with Chinese apps. “They have admitted to working as recovery agents and were lured into the scam under the guise of a part-time job,” the officer said.
According to the LT Marg police, the arrests are expected to lead to the resolution of several other cases, as the same set of numbers was used to defraud others in Mumbai and Maharashtra. Several police stations have already reported registering cases against the same numbers.
5L
Amount paid in total by complainant to suspects
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