NNA |
Updated: August 20, 2022 11:45 p.m. STI
New Delhi [India] Aug 20 (ANI): The Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) special unit on Saturday busted an alleged extortion racket involved in supplying user databases to China-based servers and in Hong Kong, a Delhi police official informed.
According to the Delhi Police, the IFSO carried out a thorough technical analysis which helped them solve the alleged case of the Chinese demands involved in the loan and extortion racket. All the apps were found to seek malicious user permissions and after getting the access permissions, the user’s contacts, chats, messages and pictures were uploaded to the China based servers and in Hong Kong.
The money route analysis also revealed that money is flowing to China through Hawala and cryptocurrencies.
In addition, these more than 100 applications were hosted from AWS servers and Ali Baba servers, which were hosted in India but are not US company compliant, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) KPS Malhotra informed.
The IFSO conducted two months of operations after which several raids were carried out in Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Police arrested 22 defendants in the case, including six Chinese nationals, namely Lynda, Akira, Zoya, Kobe Bryant, Luo Rong and Zixia Zhang.
During the raids, police recovered 9 laptops, 25 hard drives, 51 cell phones and 19 debit cards.
DCP also informed that after the crackdown on recovery agents, a new trend of moving call centers to Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh has been noticed.
Previously, the Delhi Police Cyber Cell had received numerous complaints of money extortion from people involved in providing instant loans using mobile phone apps. The victims also complained that they extorted money using the transformed nude photos.
The IFSO became aware of this and started analyzing the complaints in its Cyber Cell. During the analysis of the complaints, it was found that more than 100 such apps are involved in lending and extortion, and the collected money was routed to China via Hawala. and cryptocurrencies because the money IP address was located in China.
Police have listed the names of mobile phone apps involved in the case and they are; Fundraising app, PP money app, Main Rupees app, Cash ray app, Mobipocket app
Papa Money App, Infinity Cash App, Kredit Mango App, Kredit Marvel App, CB Loan App, Cash Advance App, HDB Loan App, Cash Tree App, RAW Loan App, Minute Cash App, Cash Light App, Cash Fish App, HD Credit app, Rupees Land app, Cash Room app, Rupee loan app and Well Kredit app.
There were 18 Chinese instant loan apps linked to the Lucknow-based extortion call centre; Rupee Way, Loan Cube, Wow Rupee, Smart Wallet, Giant Wallet, Hi Rupee, Swift Rupee, Walle twin, Fish club, Yeah cash, Im Loan, Grow tree, Magic Balance, Yocash, Fortune Tree, Super coin and Red Magic.
Meanwhile, police also recovered the operating system from the extortion racket, the police revealed that they were targeting citizens who were in desperate need of a small loan ranging from Rs 5,000 to 10,000 are forced to pay even in Lakhs. Many incidents of citizens committing suicide have even been reported in other parts of the country, DCP Malhotra informed.
A dedicated team under the supervision of ACP Raman Lamba, Sunil Kumar, Manoj Kumar and Manish Jorwal comprising Inspector Avdhesh, Arun Tyagi, SI Manjeet, Sushil and Sunil has been constituted. (ANI)
