200 SIM Cards, 1 Number: Threat To Woman Leads Tamil Nadu Cops To Loan App Gang
NDTV
Gang of 5 in Tamil Nadu worked for two loan apps based in Nigeria, and one each from Indonesia and China, say investigators
A tip-off from a woman in Tamil Nadu's Tiruppur district, who was being threatened over a loan of Rs 18,000 she'd taken via an app, has led to arrest of a five-member gang that ran a maze of phone numbers that were used for such threats to users of some foreign-based loan apps, police said today.
The woman had complained of a receiving a series of messages threatening to post her pictures on an "escort service" website — listing her as as prostitute — if she did not repay.
The gang allegedly ran an illegal "telephone exchange", meaning that they used devices to link up to 200 SIM cards to one mobile phone number, said Shashank Sai, Superintendent of Police.
They worked for two loan apps based in Nigeria, and one each from Indonesia and China, investigators said. To make tracing them harder, they used a virtual private network (VPN) to access the internet, said the officer.
