CCID seeks AGs advice regarding Lankans who worked for online loan companies
The Police Computer Crimes Investigation Division (CCID) has said that they are planning to seek the Attorney General's advice when taking action against the 80 Sri Lankan employees working for Chinese nationals who are allegedly involved in an online loan scam.
The CCID Director, Senior Superintendent Darshika Ranasinghe, told the Sunday Times that they had arrested five Chinese nationals, including the owner and manager of a company operating from Dehiwala. Also arrested was a Sri Lankan.
She said investigations had revealed that the company owner ran two more online loan companies.
The online loan scam is carried out by hacking into the phones of the loan recipients when they click links, fill out the online documents, and agree to the terms and conditions stipulated by the scammers.
"After we received a complaint on January 9 with substantial evidence, we tracked the Chinese-run company," she said.
SSP Ranasinghe added that 80 Sri Lankan employees were working as recoverers for the Chinese. They were provided with contact lists and photos obtained by hacking the phones of clients. They were instructed to use the information to threaten the clients who failed to honour repayment and set up WhatsApp groups using the contact lists to share photographs of the client, with posts claiming that he or she was not paying off loans.
“This action is a violation of Computer Crime Act Sections 3, 4, and 5, which clearly say securing unauthorised access, taking any action to secure unauthorised access to commit an offence, and causing a computer to perform a function without lawful authority are offences,” she added.
The SSP explained that the employees who worked as loan recoverers had not even been given appointment letters and did not enjoy labour rights. Their job is to recover money for the company by exerting pressure on loan receivers.
She added that the employees were both victims, as they were pressured by the company, and offenders, as they were using malicious intimidation. Therefore, they would seek the AG’s advice on taking action against them.
SSP Ranasinghe said their initial investigations had revealed that the stolen data of the victims were stored in China. Further investigations are ongoing as to what types of phone data have been collected.
She urged people not to get caught in easy online loan schemes that are unregistered by the Central Bank or any government authority. She also advised them not to click on links and share their mobile numbers and one-time passwords with anyone.