Delhi: 3 held for working with China-based gang to run extortion racket

DCP (outer) Sameer Sharma said the accused have been identified as Ravi Kumar Pankaj (28), Javed Raza Ansari (30) and Vikas Yadav (19). He said: “On June 22, a woman lodged a complaint, alleging she downloaded an app to take a short-term loan. She paid the amount within the stipulated time, but got calls from recovery agents who used abusive language and threatened her.”

Sharma said during probe, transactions of bank accounts linked with the suspected numbers were analysed. “It was found that the fraudsters downloaded documents of a company and used those to open an online settlement account on a payment gateway and aggregator. It was linked to Pankaj’s bank account, in which money was credited by the complainant. All transactions of the account were checked, and it was found that in a single day, a transaction of Rs 19.43 crore was made and it was further transferred to other entities,” he added.

“Pankaj was arrested from Rajasthan on July 4 by a team led by SHO Sandeep Panwar. He disclosed he had sold his 5 bank accounts at Rs 15,000 per account to a man, who further sold these accounts to Ansari. Ansari was arrested on Monday,” Sharma said.

Ansari was also in touch with Yadav, who said he sold 7 bank accounts to the former. “It has been found that many Chinese-operated short-term loan apps lend money instantly for 7 days. Before this, they gain access to people’s personal data… If money is not paid, call centres in other countries threaten to leak their data,” Sharma said.

“The kingpin is operating from Hong Kong. Efforts are on to track the IP addresses and nab him,” police said.