A 33-year-old man has lodged a complaint with the police stating that he was extorted by loan sharks despite repaying the loan amount he had taken from a couple of apps.
According to the police, the complainant is a resident of Pen, Raigad and works in a private company. A few months ago, he had taken Rs 10000 from an instant loan app and then from another loan app he took Rs24000. The complainant had timely re-paid both these loans. However, last month, he received a phone call from an unknown person who asked the complainant to pay back the money. The scammers also shared the complainant’s phone contact list with him on WhatsApp and threatened him that they would call everyone in his contact list if he did not pay them the money. They also morphed photographs of some people from the man’s contact list and threatened to make those photographs viral if the complainant refused to pay the money. On November 14, out of fear, the victim transferred Rs 18,900 in six online transactions to the scammers.
However, when the scammers kept demanding more money the complainant approached the police and got an offence registered. A case has been registered under sections 351 (criminal intimidation), 318 (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act. The complainant has also shared details of the fraudulent loan apps and the contact details of the scammers with the police.
