BHUBANESWAR: The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Odisha police stated on Friday that the proprietor of IWT India from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, was detained for allegedly defrauding people through a fraudulent loan mobile app.

Mohd Javed Saifi, the accused, was detained on April 4 for his role in lending money at a high interest rate and pursuing defaulters via coercion. The arrest was made after victims and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) filed complaints about the illegal operation of lending apps that are not registered as non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) under the RBI Act.

The EOW Bhubaneswar launched an inquiry into one such loan app, Koko, and its sister, Jojo. The two fraud loan Apps have been downloaded by over 1.5 lakh people, many of them are from Odisha.

According to police officials, the IWT India was utilised as a shell business to shift money, and its founder Saifi was paid a modest commission for it. The police found that crores of rupees had been sent through the IWT India account, and Saifi, the account holder, was unable to provide sufficient answers about the transactions, according to the report.
During its examination, the EOW discovered that the applications offered clients small loans ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 via UPI or a link to their bank accounts.  After the funds were sent into clients' bank accounts, authorities from the two applications demanded that they refund the loan amount within a week at a hefty interest rate.

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