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The Bureau of Immigration has issued a lookout notice against three Chinese nationals in relation to a fake loan app case registered by Odisha Crime Branch’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW).

After the Odisha EOW reached out to the Bureau, the immigration bureau issued notices against Shen Zhenhua alias Tony, Quan Hongwei alias Paul and Yang Haiying alias Doris.

Per EOW’s investigation into the fake loan app case, Zhenhua and Hongwei, of China’s Jiangsu province and Haiying of Sichuan province are the prime suspects in the illegal loan app case. The three Chinese nationals have been accused of running multiple fake loan apps to harass and extort money from customers. 

The Odisha EOW reckons that the trio’s actions have impacted more than 1 Lakh customers across the country.

India was not the only country the trio was targeting, however. Zhenhua, Hongwei and Haiying had similar fake loan apps active in countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, with links in the US and Hong Kong. The Odisha EOW also uncovered the trio’s plans to expand to Africa and the Middle East.

According to an Indian Express report, Zhenhua, Hongwei and Haiying operated in India through many shell companies. The three appointed Indian nationals as the directors of these shell companies, one of whom, Nitin Malik, was arrested on July 13.

EOW DIG, Jai Narayan Pankaj, told IE, “We will request Interpol through the authorities concerned for the extradition of the three Chinese nationals to India. Efforts are being made to share information about the three accused with law enforcement agencies of other countries.”

This is not the first instance where Chinese nationals have been discovered to be running a network of fake loan apps in India to defraud Indians and send the ‘proceeds of crime’ to entities abroad, mainly China.

Back in April, Delhi Police arrested five people in connection with a similar case. The loan app was illegally operating in India as it did not have an NBFC license and was using predatory methods to get the loan amount back.

These fake loan apps have a set modus operandi – charge extortionate processing fees and interest rates, gain access to a user’s personal data such as contacts and harass the user for repayments, sometimes even resorting to public humiliation.

To further investigate the issue, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned senior Google executives in April, asking for a detailed list of micro-lending apps that are plying their trade in India.