Andhra cop gives up son to Hyd police for alleged involvement in money lending apps

A police officer from Andhra Pradesh reportedly reached out to the Hyderabad cyber crime police investigating the loan app scam with details about his own son's involvement in the scam. The Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) rank officer from Kurnool district handed over his son to the Hyderabad police for allegedly operating call centres that made threatening phone calls to loan defaulters.

The New Indian Express reported that the ASI called the Hyderabad cyber crime police, tipping them off after noticing his son worked at a call centre set up by a Chinese national who had allegedly swindled Rs 21,000 crore out of India in the form of bitcoins to China. The son of the officer, identified as K Nagaraju, was allegedly overseeing operations at four call centres — Aglow Technologies, Liufang Technologies, Nabloom Technologies and PinPrint Technologies located in Bengaluru.

The officer reportedly told the Hyderabad police that his son, after gaining experience at the call centre, also roped his younger son Eswar Kumar, into the call centre businesses located at Bengaluru and Pune.

Police officials told the paper that the ASI asked his son to return home urgently, and the unsuspecting son was taken into custody by the Hyderabad police who were waiting for him. Based on the details provided by the ASI, the Hyderabad police arrested four more persons heading the call centres, including a Chinese national, Zhu Wei, also referred to as Lambo, reported Deccan Chronicle.

The Hyderabad police informed the paper that a Chinese national, Yuan Yuan also known as Sissi has been identified as the kingpin of the entire operation in India and China. Sissi is presently not in India. Hyderabad police estimate that a total of Rs 21,000 crore had been extorted from Indians through the exorbitant interest rates lived by these Chinese owned money lending apps.

The Telangana police began a crackdown against the digital money lending applications after three instances of suicide were reported among those who had taken loan over these apps. Instances of suicide were also reported from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Police have also requested Google to take down over 158 money lending apps from Google Play Store.