Look out circular issued against Chinese illegal loan app operator

The Immigration Bureau has issued a look out circular against Chinese national Liu Yi for his alleged involvement in duping people through digital fake loan apps at the request of Economic Offences Wing, Bhubaneswar, police said.

Yi is the main accused in a case lodged in EOW police station on April 21, 2022, under various sections of the IPC and IT Act. The EOW has already arrested five accused accomplices of Yi and is in touch with various state police on his illegal activities, a release by it said.

It has conducted raids in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi and has frozen more than Rs 6.57 crore.

A look out circular is generally issued to alert immigration check posts at airports and seaports to alert law enforcement agencies if the wanted person tries to leave the country or arrive in it from a foreign place.

A statement issued by the EOW said that Yi used to run many illegal digital loan apps in India like – KOKO Loan, JOJO Loan Golden, Lightening Loan, Silver Kredit Loan, Gold Cash loan, Little Borrow, Loan Tap, Credit Loan, Kredit bear Loan, Speedy rupee Loan, Xpress credit Loan, Kredit Plan loan, Rupee Day Loan among others. The EOW said that there are more than 1.5 lakh downloads in one of the apps and it is suspected that lakhs of people across the country, particularly those from the lower middle class in need of small loans, especially during difficult times of COVID, have been cheated or extorted of their money. It said Yi, whose parent company Jianbing Technology was at Hangzhou in China, had started his illegal business in India in 2019 from Bangalore. He is the director of Omlette technology private limited and indirectly controls and owns other shell companies.

The release said that there are at least two more Chinese persons who assisted Yi in the scam. They used to make Yi’s employees or any vulnerable and needy person directors of the shell companies but actually used to control and operate the companies and bank accounts. They also used many call centers to make abusive and threatening calls to the loanees.

It is suspected that they are running such illegal loan apps in other countries too, specially in Thailand, it said.

Once the fake loan apps are downloaded in a customer’s mobile play store, a small amount ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 10,000 was credited to his/her bank account. Within a week the customer or borrower is asked to repay the amount at an excessive rate of interest.

If the person refused to pay the high rate of interest he/she is humiliated and bullied in many ways, the EOW said.

Obscene messages and indecent pictures along with abusive texts in filthy languages are sent to his/her Whatsapp number and as well as to his/her contact list as a coercive measure to recover the loan amount with interest. “This process of recovery is so overbearing and humiliating that there are some instances of customers committing suicide,” the EOW release said.

There have been already more than 1.5 lakh downloads of KOKO and JOJO loan apps and the EOW has received more than 100 complaints from Odisha related to Yi’s illegal and abusive activities. The EOW has issued advisory on the illegal loan apps to contain them and to create awareness among the public about using them. If someone has already downloaded or used the illegal loan apps they should not tolerate any harassing behaviour, but report the matter to the police.