- Chinese loan apps are scamming, laundering crores by exploiting UPI, fake payment gateways
- Chinese scammers operating through loan apps and real money games have found a new way to cheat people.
- they exploit loopholes in India’s digital payment ecosystem like UPI.
- A recent investigation has revealed that over two months, just one app laundered over Rs 37 lakhs.
- Chinese scammers trapping people using loan offers, and games.
- Rs 37 Lakhs laundered in two months using just one app
- During the investigation, it was found that there are at least 55 such harmful Android apps have been distributed through various channels.
Instead of going through the trouble of actually paying loan seekers and then unleashing their collection agents after them, Chinese scammers have now found a new way.
An investigative report has revealed that scammers are now using illegal instant loan apps to lure thousands of victims with false promises of substantial loans and easy repayments. To process the loans, these apps just ask for a few basic details, and about 5-10 percent of the loan amount as a processing fee. And because these loan apps promise instant loans of up to 5-10 lakhs, the processing fee can be a substantial amount.
In some cases, these scammers pose as a real-money gaming app, which first lures in victims using a small reward, and then gets them to invest real money into the game.
Once they collect the processing fee, they then vanish. These scammers are evading actions by law enforcement agencies by using Chinese payment gateways. In certain cases, it was found that the money was sent to an Indian bank account, which was then routed through several mule accounts before it was finally laundered out of India to China.
During their investigation, it was found that there are at least 55 such harmful Android apps have been distributed through various channels. Furthermore, several scammers get their victims to sideload apps that are not found on the Google Play Store. The investigating agency was able to identify about 15 Chinese gateways that these apps directed to.
The investigation also exposed some of the loopholes that we have in our banking systems. Scammers based in China, open up several fraudulent payment gateways, which are primarily hosted in China. These gateways exploit UPI’s QR code, by generating fake QR codes that redirect victims to legitimate UPI apps like PhonePe and GPay, linked to bank accounts of money mules.
The scammers recruit individuals via Telegram, offering them a commission to provide their bank accounts as a place to direct the money to, and to park it there. Instead of getting people to open up new accounts, these scammers look for people who already have bank accounts in small, cooperative banks as these banks, don’t usually have the infrastructure to flag suspicious activities.
These recruits are then instructed to change the associated mobile numbers with banks, granting the scammers full remote control over the accounts. These compromised bank accounts are then used to receive payments from victims through the fraudulent payment gateways, which is then distributed through a bunch of similar accounts and finally laundered to China through hawala systems.
(With inputs from agencies)
