200 SIM cards, 1 number: Threat to woman leads Tamil Nadu police to loan app gang

Chennai:

A tip-off from a woman in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruppur district, who was being bullied for a loan of Rs 18,000 taken through an app, has led to the arrest of a five-member gang that ran a maze of phone numbers. Police said today that such threats were used for users of some foreign-based loan apps.

The woman had complained of receiving a series of messages threatening to post her photos on an “escort service” website – listing her as a prostitute – if she did not pay.

Superintendent of Police Shashank Sai said the gang allegedly ran an illegal “telephone exchange”, meaning they used devices to link 200 SIM cards to a single mobile phone number.

Investigators said he worked for two loan apps based in Nigeria and one each in Indonesia and China. To make it difficult to trace them, they used a virtual private network (VPN) to access the internet, the official said.

He said an IMEI – a unique number for each mobile phone, one per SIM slot – was found linked to 40 devices.

In the Express case, the woman initially took Rs 3,000, and then the gang duped her of Rs 15,000 by sending easy-to-click weblinks for delivery.

Police have charged the men with cheating and impersonation, besides invoking the IT Act.