Cops on a hunt for fraud loan sharks

MUMBAI: As the city continues to witness a rise in the number of harassment cases involving loan recovery agents, the Mumbai police have finally taken a step to address the issue.

A dedicated team of 12 cops has been formed to investigate the suicide of a 38-year-old man from Kurar, Malad East on May 4 and similar incidents.

The teams have left for Odisha and New Delhi to hunt down the loan recovery agents, hired by loan apps, whose harassment allegedly led to the suicide. According to cops, as part of their recovery process, the loan sharks often resort to harassing and slandering the borrowers by sharing their morphed photos or videos with their family and friends. Unable to deal with the continuous harassment and blackmail, many have died by suicide, just like the Malad man, who had not even taken a loan.

Somnath Gharge, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 12 said, “We have formed teams involving two police inspectors and ten police constables and are searching for the accused.” Most of these loan sharks operate from outside Maharashtra.

Meanwhile, the Kurar police have registered a fourth case of a man being cheated by the loan recovery agents. A 36-year-oldman, working as a LIC agent residing in Shivaji Nagar, Kurar, Malad had downloaded an application to increase his CIBIL Score. On April 26, he borrowed ₹3,500 from the application. However, immediately after May 2, he started getting calls to repay the loan and the callers even shared a link to pay the money. “The link was not active, so the LIC agent called the number back and asked to share any bank account number to repay the loan. He paid the money. and realised that the person deleted the account number,” said an officer from Kurar police.