3,500 loans apps go off Google’s Play Store for accessing user data

Google has removed 3,500 personal loan apps from the Play Store due to non-compliance with policies and regulations. The apps according to Google were illegally accessing user data, which included contacts and photos.

The action came months within the Mumbai cyber police arresting 14 people for their involvement in an online loan app fraud which had used half a dozen shell companies registered across India to open bank accounts and extort money. The accused converted around Rs 350 crore into cryptocurrency before transferring it abroad, the police had found.

Google has now introduced new licensing requirements for personal loan apps to combat fraud in India. The Mumbai police had registered 176 loan fraud cases, which led to the arrest of 70 persons and filing of 12 chargesheets. It was found that the racket even had links in Nepal. Two call centres in Nepal were busted in 2022, following a tip-off by the Mumbai police.

The racket came to light after Gopi Manddi (32) a resident of the western suburbs, was extorted five times more than a loan of Rs 3.4 lakh he had availed from various loan apps between 2021 and 2022.

DCP (Mumbai-Cyber) Dr Balsing Rajput said that the number of such cases declined after the racket had been busted. The Nepal police cooperated in the probe and provided details of shady call centres, which had been outsourced work of threatening victims with objectionable videos. The probe also found that a cash-free loan app aggregator gateway was used to receive around Rs 130 crore by one of the women involved in the loan fraud racket. Liyang Sheng (39), the mastermind of the scan operated from China. He was recently arrested.