KARACHI: The Cybercrime Wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday said it arrested nine suspects and booked 19 others for allegedly blackmailing citizens through loan-giving mobile applications (apps), Dawn.com reported.

The development came a day after the agency launched an investigation into the death of a man in Rawalpindi, who reportedly took his own life, due to “threats” made by loan apps over his failure to repay the ballooning interest on his debts.

A day earlier, the FIA team raided two offices of the loan app in G-8 sector. They sealed the offices and confiscated laptops and other material.

In a statement on Friday, an FIA spokesperson said the cybercrime cell, along with the financial services, conducted raids in several areas of Rawalpindi during which nine suspects were held and first information reports were registered against 19.

“Inspector Badar Munir sealed a number of offices inside a plaza located on the Saidu Sharif road,” the statement said.

The FIA said the suspects were assigned targets to make 100 to 150 calls per day to citizens, as well as their friends and families. It added that in the raided offices, a separate department was being run to make what it described as “torture calls”.

The FIA said that the departments were called “D-0, D-1, D-2, DS-1, DS-2, and DS-3”. The suspects would gather personal information about citizens through the loan apps and subsequently “they used it to harass people”.

The FIA added that a significant amount of documents, computers, laptops and mobile SIM cards were taken into possession during the raid.

Man dies by suicide

The investigation into predatory loan apps was launched after a man died by suicide in Rawalpindi.

The deceased man’s wife, who wished not to be named, told Dawn.com on Thursday that her husband had taken two loans from separate mobile apps, one of which had seen its principal plus interest amass to Rs0.7m.

The wife said he had initially taken a loan of Rs13,000 from EasyLoan app, which quickly soared to Rs100,000 a few days later due to interest. To pay back that loan, he took another loan from Bharosa app, which also rose to Rs700,000 in a few weeks, she added.

She said that her husband had lost his job six months ago, leaving the family unable to pay for their children’s school fees and rent.

According to her, the officials operating the app “used to call daily to threaten and scare” the family of police action against them if the loan repayment was delayed, and her husband died by suicide after growing tired of the threats.

Following the incident, the deceased man’s brother, Muzammil Husain, filed a complaint with the Race Course police station under Section 174 (police to inquire to report in suicide, etc) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Dawn.com reached out to the contact details shown on the apps but did not receive responses.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2023