Mumbai: Harassed by loan sharks, man approaches cops

A 30-year-old man who works as an assistant manager in a bank at Goregaon has lodged a complaint with the police that he had been facing harassment from loan sharks. In order to repay one loan, the victim kept taking loans from other apps and had totally taken Rs 10.55 lakh loan and had even repaid the same.

According to the Arnala police in Virar, in 2020, the victim had taken a Rs 10000 loan from a mobile loan app and had repaid the said loan within a week. The victim then onwards had not taken any loan from any app.

On March 16, this year, the victim received a text message on his phone, informing him that a loan of Rs 10 lakh had been approved for him. A worried victim, who had not applied for any loan, clicked on the link provided in the message after which an app got downloaded on his phone.

The victim then shared his bank account details, selfie photograph, PAN and AADHAR details and gave required phone permissions on the said app after which Rs 9000 loan got forcibly approved and Rs 6147 got credited in his account. The said amount was supposed to be repaid in a week.

From March 22 onwards the victim started getting messages on his phone threatening to morph his photograph and send it to his contact list. The victim then in order to repay the previous loan amount, kept taking loans from other similar apps and ended up receiving a total Rs 10.55 lakh loan from at least 32 apps.

Harassed with this, the victim approached the police and got a criminal offence registered on charges of cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form, identity theft and cheating by personation by using computer resource.

Published on: Wednesday, August 03, 2022, 07:18 PM IST