Bhubaneswar: The Bureau of Immigration (BOI) has issued a lookout circular against three Chinese nationals — Shen Zhenhua alias Tony of Jiangsu, Quan Hongwei alias Paul of Jiangsu, and Yang Haiying alias Doris of Sichuan — for defrauding lakhs of people through an illegal digital loan app, ‘Kredit Gold Loan App’, following a request from Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police.
“They are the mastermind and main accused in an EOW case under sections 294/384/420/467/468/471/120-B IPC, r/w Sec.66 (D) IT Act, 2000 (2nd Illegal Loan APP),” the EOW said in a release on Sunday.
This came four days after a lookout circular was issued against Liu Yi, a Chinese national who allegedly ran many illegal mobile loan apps like KOKO Loan, JOJO Loan, Golden Lightning Loan, Silver Kredit Loan, Gold Cash loan, Speedy rupee Loan, Xpress credit Loan, on EOW’s request.
Notably, a director of a Delhi firm was nabbed on July 13 in the Kredit Gold Loan App case on the basis of a complaint lodged by Shakti Prasad Dash of Bhubaneswar, alleging harassment by the officials of the digital loan app. The accused had cheated several customers in Odisha and other states.
The investigation further revealed that he was in regular contact with three Chinese nationals and was getting a lump sum amount from them towards his salary for lending/recovering money through the fake loan apps. The EOW found that the accused Chinese nationals had links in the US and Hong Kong. “They are in the process of expanding their financial criminal network in African and Middle East countries. They operate in India in connivance with many shell companies mainly named Goodstart Business Pvt Ltd and Rightstart Business Pvt Ltd” the release stated.
The Chinese fraudsters duped people through these fake companies, where the Indians are appointed as the directors. Even some unscrupulous officials of mobile phone companies, chartered accountants, company secretaries, Fintech companies, recovery agents and call centres are also involved in the fake companies, it further said.
Nitin Mallik, Director of Good Start Business Services Pvt Ltd, who was a close associate and henchman of Chinese fraudsters, was brought to Bhubaneswar on transit remand on Friday and remanded to 4-day EOW custody.
These accused persons along with some other Chinese groups ran hundreds of illegal digital loan apps and were extorting/abusing lakhs of innocent loanees, especially low middle-class people, the release stated.
The EOW will move Interpol through proper channels for the extradition of these criminals and also alert law enforcement agencies of other countries. It has already written twice to Google to take down the illegal loan aPPs from its play store. The agency has also requested RBI to impress upon Google for the same. It urged the Registrar of Companies to enquire and take necessary action against suspected shell companies. The agency is also in touch with other law enforcement agencies for necessary action against these scamsters, it added.
