By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: EOW arrested accused Nitin Mallik, Director of Good Start Business Services Pvt. Ltd. on13.07.2022 from Hari-nagar police station area of New Delhi in EOW PS Case No.13dt.02.07.2022 u/s294/384/420/467/468/471/120-B IPC, r/w Sec.66 (D) IT Act, 2000. On arrest,the accused was produced before the Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Tis-hazari court,New Delhi, and was brought to Bhubaneswar on transit remand for his production beforeHon’ble SDJM, Bhubaneswar. Delhi police (West Delhi) provided necessary assistance to EOW, Odisha team in arresting accused.
The aforementioned case was registered on the basis of the report submitted by Smt.Pranati Senapati, Inspector,EOW, who was enquiring into an allegation of Shri Sakti Prasad Dashof Bhubaneswar regarding the harassment/ extortion/ mental torture by the recovery agents ofthe Digital Loan App “Kredit Gold” by sending the humiliating/abusive/ messages/ morphedphotographs etc.
Investigation reveals that Shri Sakti Prasad Dash after downloading the above said loan app “Kredit Gold” received the instant loan amount of Rs.9,000/- that was credited to his account. Only after 4 days he received whatsapp messages/calls to pay back Rs.15,627/-.
Thereafter, he received call and messages from different mobile numbers which were traced tobe the number of a company namely M/s Good Start Business Pvt. Ltd. of which the presentaccused Nitin Malik is one of the Directors.
It was further ascertained that M/s Good Start Business Pvt. Ltd. is not registered as NBFC with RBI. The company is illegally operating as digital lender. It is suspected that this international gang is running at least 10 such illegal loan APPS. This is worth to mention that there are more than one Lakh downloads of “Kredit Gold APP’ alone. If we include all the APPsthere would be Lakhs of victim across the country including from Odisha.
The accused Nitin Malik became the Director of M/s Good Start Business Pvt. Ltd. at the instance/ connivance of some Chinese mastermind/ bosses. The main objective of said
company is to purchase and run virtual phone numbers from BSNL, AIRTEL and Vodafone to be used for running and facilitating the lending and recovery through different loan apps. Nitin Mallik was in direct and regular touch with at least three Chinese nationals and used to get huge sum/ salary for this job.
The accused Nitin Malik was also found to be one of the Directors of another company namely M/s Right Start Business Pvt. Ltd.Many incriminating materials like copy of Passports of the Chinese National, agreement copy for virtual space, contract agreements between Chinese and the telecom service providers, whatsapp chats and e-mails and several abusive text messages meant for the loanee have been recovered, collected and seized from the arrested accused.
The accused is working for the Chinese people having regular contacts with them and is responsible for lending/recovery of the loan amount in India. He is also wanted by different Law Enforcement Agencies of India including Mumbai Police. The investigation is in progress.
Advisory on Illegal Loan Apps
In order to contain these types of crime and to create general awareness among the public, it ishereby advised/ requested to the public that not to take any loans from unregistered/ illegal loan apps available on Internet and Playstore as the loan apps on pretext of advancing loan, access/ hack all information from the customers phone, which may later be used by the company to perpetrate some other financial crime. Such loan apps also harass the customer bycharging not only a high rate of interest but on failure to repay the same, harass them by sending obscene, morphed porn photographs and indecent representation of the customers to their contact list. Hence, on failure of repayment of loan, the consequences have to be borne not only by the customer but also by their family members and friends/contacts. Many times money is also credited just after downloading the APP without actually asking/ requesting money.
In some states, many people have committed suicide being blackmailed / continuously humiliated by the recovery agents of these illegal loan APPs. Not only the borrowers but their family members are also harassed. All are advised that one should avoid downloading/ using these illegal loan APPs.Even if someone has already downloaded/ taken loan, they should not surrender/ tolerate the abusive/ harassing behavior/ torture but instead report the matter to police. And in no case they should take the extreme steps like committing suicide.
Advisory1. Please do not give your documents for opening of bank accounts to be operated by someone else and also don’t allow anybody to use your SIM to be used by someone
else. These things can be used for illegal purposes. 2. Please don’t surrender to abusive/ torturous method of recovery agents of these Loan App companies. Report the matter to local Police.
