In a distressing incident that underscores the perils of fraudulent loan apps, a woman in Bengaluru has fallen victim to a scam, leading to the circulation of morphed photos of her and her daughter. The cyber police have initiated an investigation into the matter after the victim reported the alarming incident.
The woman, a resident of Wilson Gardens, installed a loan app named AMC Credit Park. To her surprise, she discovered that a substantial amount of money, totaling more than ₹6000, was credited to her account without her submitting any loan request.
Following the unauthorized credit, the victim started receiving calls from unknown numbers, with the callers threatening to leak her pictures to contacts in her phonebook. Disturbingly, the victim also found that some of her contacts had received manipulated images of her daughter.
Reports indicate that the victim received calls from different numbers with country codes such as USA, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc. The cyber criminals employed Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to mask their IP addresses, making threatening calls while displaying numbers from various countries.
Unbeknownst to the victim, she had granted access to her pictures during the installation of the app, providing the fraudsters with the opportunity to manipulate them. The police have registered a case at the Central Cyber Economic and Narcotics Crime (CEN) police station under sections 66D (Punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) and 67 (Punishment for publishing and transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act.
Bengaluru Police have issued a warning to the public about the risks associated with fraudulent loan apps, urging individuals to refrain from downloading and borrowing money from unauthorized service providers. Investigations into the case are ongoing, with concerted efforts to apprehend the perpetrators and curb such cybercrimes.
