New Delhi: The Delhi Police broke an instant loan-cum-extortion ring worth more than Rs 500 crore in a two-month-long operation, according to officials, and detained 22 suspects from across the nation. They said that the gang was controlled by Chinese nationals and that cryptocurrencies and hawala were used to transfer the extorted funds to China.

The authorities claim that hundreds of complaints were made stating that loans were being given out at higher interest rates and that when the money and interest were fully recovered, the gang utilised their modified nude images to demand additional payments from the public.

These applications pestered users for nefarious permissions. According to a senior police official, the gang used to upload sensitive material to servers located in China and Hong Kong after gaining access to the users’ contacts, chats, messages, and photographs. The applications were created under the guise of offering small loans. The user would download one of these applications, grant it access, and the loan money would be deposited to his account minutes later, according to the officer.

The users would then begin receiving calls from different numbers that were procured on fake IDs, who would extort money threatening that their morphed nude pictures would be uploaded on the internet if they failed to heed to the demand, Deputy Commissioner of Police (IFSO) KPS Malhotra said. Due to social fear and stigma, the users used to pay the money, which was later sent to China through hawala or after purchasing cryptocurrencies, the DCP said.

A individual who was in desperate need of a minor loan of between Rs 5,000 and 10,000 was made to pay back several lakh rupees. Police reported that this has also contributed to numerous suicides. They claimed that the gang used many accounts, each of which received more than Rs 1 crore daily.

The network was discovered by police to be widespread in Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and other states. According to Malhotra, the 22 individuals—two of whom were women—were apprehended in various locations around the nation. They admitted after questioning that they were under the control of Chinese nationals. The servers in that nation delivered all the information on the recoveries. Few Chinese nationals have had their identities confirmed, and authorities said they are working to find and apprehend them.

The operatives have been moving their recovery call centres to Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh since the crackdown. In total, the Chinese nationals have stolen more than Rs 500 crore, according to the authorities.