Illegal loan app case: EOW arrests one more accused, cautions people not to fall into traps

The Economic Offence Wing of the Crime Branch has arrested one more fraudster for allegedly cheating people through fake loan mobile apps. 

The arrestee identified as Tarun Dudeja, a resident of Sector- 48, Gurgaon was nabbed from Bhubaneswar on May 14 (Saturday) under sections of 294/506/507/420/467/468/120 IPC & 66 D of IT Act.

As per a press release by the EOW, Dudeja is the director of several dubious companies which used to dupe people in the name of providing loan online. 41 postpaid SIM cards in the name of various other persons were seized from him.

The CB had earlier arrested one person named Mohd Javed Saifi from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh for his role in the money lending fraud scheme. Saifi, a Director of one shell company “IWT” was arrested and cash of Rs 6.57 crore was frozen by the Crime Branch. 

According to police probe, Dudeja along with Javed Sahifi used to lure their employees/ interested/ vulnerable / poor people to allow them to open bank accounts and take SIM cards using their name. These accounts would be used to channel the money collected through illegal loan APPs. The mobile/SIM numbers connected to these bank account would be actually handled by the fraudsters. All the related information/ call/ OTP would land on these mobile numbers which are handled by fraudsters not by the actual/official account holder. This mechanism is used to create extra layers to confuse/ distract law enforcement agencies/police. Generally, they use 3-4 layers before money is landing at the mastermind’s account. 

The fraudsters have disclosed that they pay around Rs one to two lakh to person concerned for allowing the bank account/ SIM to be used as Mule Account, the EOW press release stated.

Meanwhile, the crime bureau has issued an advisory for the information of public while cautioning all not to fall into the traps laid by such fraudsters. 

Please do not give your documents for opening 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.

Please don’t surrender to abusive/ torturous methods of recovery agents of these Loan App companies. Report the matter to local police.