Dozens of people around the world have committed suicide because of scammers

At least 60 people in India have committed suicide due to insidious loan schemes spanning 14 countries around the world. Secret investigation conducted with the BBC, has exposed those who benefited from this deadly scheme in India and China.

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Aunt's phone call woke up Astha Singha. The voice on the other end of the line warned: “Don’t let your mother leave the house.”

A sleepy and dazed 17-year-old girl rushed into the next room and saw her usually cheerful and fearless mother, who was sobbing loudly.

Bhumi Singha, a respected Mumbai-based real estate lawyer and widow raising her daughter alone, was on the verge of despair.

In a panic, Bhumi began to transmit information about important documents and contacts to her daughter and seemed desperate to get out of the apartment.

Astha realized the urgency of the situation.

“Don’t let her out of your sight,” my aunt insisted over the phone. “Otherwise she might do something terrible.”

Astha was aware that her mother was receiving strange calls and had a debt to someone, but she had no idea how the situation could reach such a critical point. For several months now, her mother had been suffering from mental abuse and psychological torment.

Bhumi was the victim of an insidious global scam affecting at least 14 countries. Scammers use bullying and blackmail to make a profit, thereby ruining people's lives.

Cruel and simple

The business scheme, despite its cruelty, is quite simple.

There are many loan programs that promise quick money. Not all of them are scams, but there are some that, when downloaded onto mobile devices, can steal contacts, photos and documents, and customer IDs, and then use this information for blackmail.

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If clients cannot pay the debt on time, and sometimes even when they do, then their data is transferred to the call center, where specially trained young operators with laptops and phones begin moral and psychological pressure forcing people to pay money.

At the end of 2021, Bhumi borrowed about 47 rupees ($000) to cover work expenses. The money arrived almost immediately, but significant fees were deducted from it. Seven days later, she was due to repay the loan, but her financial situation had not improved, so she turned to another credit app, and then another. Her debt and interest began to rise and eventually reached two million rupees ($565).

Soon calls started coming in from debt collectors, who quickly became aggressive and started abusing Bhumi. Even after she paid off the debt, debt collectors claimed she was lying. They called her 200 times a day and even sent her threatening photographs to intimidate her; they said that they knew where she lived.

The situation became increasingly critical and the collectors threatened to send a message to all 486 contacts in Bhumi's phone, calling her a thief and a prostitute.

Threats against her daughter kept Bhumi awake at night.

She borrowed money from friends, relatives and other lending apps - a total of 69 sources. And every morning, as if by evil will, her phone began to ring endlessly.

Bhumi eventually managed to get all the money back, but agents from one loan program, Asan Loan, continued to harass her. The exhausted woman could not concentrate on work and began to have panic attacks.

One day, a colleague called her to his desk and showed her a photo of her naked on his phone.

The picture was crudely photoshopped, Bhumi’s head was “glued” to someone else’s body, but this filled her with disgust and shame. She passed out right next to her colleague's desk. Asan Loan sent this photo to all the contacts in her phone book. It was then that Bhumi thought about suicide.

Journalists have found evidence of similar fraudulent schemes around the world. In India alone, the BBC has found at least 60 people who have taken their own lives due to "credit harassment".

Most of the victims were between 20 and 30 years old. Among them are a fireman, a musician, young parents who left behind two small daughters, a grandfather and a grandson, who participated in lending together. Four of the dead were teenagers.

A spy among the scammers

Most victims are embarrassed to speak out about fraud, and perpetrators largely remain anonymous and invisible. After several months of investigation, the Air Force was able to track down a young debt collection agent at call centers working with several credit applications.

Rohan (name changed) told us that he was disturbed by the violence he witnessed. According to him, many clients cried, some threatened to commit suicide: “I couldn’t sleep after that.” He agreed to help the BBC expose the scam.

Rohan applied for work at two different call centers—Majesty Legal Services and Callflex Corporation—and worked undercover for several weeks.

The videos he shot showed young agents harassing and harassing clients.

“Behave, or I'll beat you,” one woman scolds. She accused the client of incest, and when he hung up, she laughed. Another suggested that a client send his mother to work as a sex worker to repay a loan.

Rohan documented more than 100 cases of harassment and abuse, capturing this systematic extortion on camera for the first time.

The worst incident of violence he witnessed occurred at Callflex Corporation, located near Delhi. There, agents regularly used obscene language to humiliate and intimidate clients. These were not rogue agents who went off script: they were controlled and directed by call center managers, in particular a man named Vishal Chaurasia.

Rohan gained Chaurasia's trust and, along with a journalist posing as an investor, organized a meeting where he was asked to explain exactly how the scam worked.

According to him, when a client takes out a loan, he gives the program access to contacts on his phone. If a customer misses a payment, Callflex debt collectors pursue them first and then their contacts. Agents are allowed to say whatever they want, Chaurasia said, as long as they get paid.

“Then the client pays out of shame,” he explains. “You will find at least one person in your contact list who could ruin his life.”

"We replied that she was dead"

One of the many victims of scammers was Kearney Munika.

The 24-year-old civil servant was the pride of the family, the only student at school to get a government job. Her father, a successful farmer, was willing to help her get a master's degree in Australia.

Three years ago, the girl committed suicide.

“That Monday, as usual, she got on her scooter and went to work,” recalls her father, Kirney Bhupani. “She smiled.”

It was only when the police checked Munika's phone and bank statements that they learned that the girl had taken out loans from 55 different programs. It all started with 10 thousand rupees ($120), and soon the amount increased more than 30 times. At the time of her suicide, she had returned over 300 thousand rupees ($3600).

Police allege that the debt collectors harassed her with calls and vulgar messages and began sending the same messages to her contacts.

Munika's room now resembles a makeshift temple. Her ID card hangs by the door, along with the dowry her mother collected for the wedding.

What upsets her father the most is that she did not tell him about her problem.

“We could easily find the money,” he says, wiping away tears.

As the man was driving his daughter's body home from the hospital, her phone rang and he answered an obscene tirade.

“They said the daughter had to pay,” he recalls. “We replied that she was dead.”

"Who could these monsters be?" - asks the indignant father.

Hari (name changed) worked at the call center of one of the lending apps where Munika borrowed money. The pay was good there, but after Munika's death he felt uncomfortable being involved.

The man claims that he himself did not make the offensive calls; he says that he was on the team that had the first polite conversations. Managers instructed employees on how to insult and threaten people, he said.

The agents sent messages to the victim's contacts, exposing him as a fraudster and a thief.

“Everyone has a reputation to uphold with their family. No one wants to spoil it for a measly 5000 rupees,” he says.

Once the payment is received, debt collectors move on to the next client.

When clients started threatening suicide, no one took it seriously, and that's when the suicides started. The workers called Parshuram Takwa's boss and asked if they should stop.

The next day, Takwe showed up at the office. He was angry.

“Do as you are told,” he ordered.

A few months later Munika died.

Chinese footprint

Takwe was ruthless. But he did not lead this operation alone. Sometimes, according to Hari, the program interface switched to Chinese without warning.

Takwe was married to a Chinese woman named Liang Tian Tian. Together they opened a loan recovery company, Jiyaliang, in Pune, where Hari worked.

In December 2020, Takwe and Liang were arrested on stalking charges but were released on bail several months later.

In April 2022, they were accused of extortion, intimidation and incitement to suicide. They are now fugitives from justice.

An analysis of his company, Jiyaliang, led reporters to a Chinese businessman named Li Xiang.

He is not on the Internet, but journalists found a phone number associated with one of his employees and, posing as investors, set up a meeting.

With his face pressed towards the camera, Lee showed off his business in India.

“We are still operating, we just don’t tell Indians that we are a Chinese company,” he explained.

Back in 2021, two of Lee's companies were raided by Indian police, who are investigating allegations of harassment by credit fraudsters. Their bank accounts were frozen.

“You have to understand that because we strive to quickly return our investment, we do not pay local taxes, and the interest rates we offer violate local laws,” he says.

Lee said his company has its own lending programs in India, Mexico and Colombia.

It claims to be a leader in risk control and debt collection services in Southeast Asia, and is now expanding its operations in Latin America and Africa - with more than 3000 employees in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India ready to provide "loan recovery services."

He then explained what his company does to recover the loans.

“If you do not return the money, we can add you on WhatsApp and on the third day we will simultaneously call you and send a message on WhatsApp and call your contacts. Then on the fourth day, if your contacts don’t pay, we have specific, detailed procedures,” he shares his secrets. — We get access to call records and collect a lot of information about the client. Essentially, it’s like he’s naked in front of us.”

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According to Li Xiang, he and his companies comply with all local laws and regulations, have never launched predatory loan applications, have ceased cooperation with Jiyaliang, a loan recovery company run by Liang Tian Tian and Parshuram Takwe, and do not collect or use customer contact information.

He said his call centers adhere to strict standards and denied profiting from the suffering of ordinary people.

Majesty Legal Services denies using customer contacts to recover loans. Their agents were told to avoid abusive or threatening calls, and any violation of company policy would result in termination.

"I'm alone"

Lawyer Bhumi Sinha could handle harassment, threats, insults and fatigue, but not the embarrassment of a pornographic photo.

“They exposed me naked in front of the whole world,” she lamented. “In a second, I lost my self-respect and dignity.”

This photo was received by lawyers, architects, officials, elderly relatives and friends of her parents - people who would never look at her the same way again.

She was ostracized by her neighbors in the community where she lived for 40 years.

“Today I have no friends. “I’m alone,” says the woman, smiling sadly.

Some members of her family still don't talk to her. She constantly wonders if the men she works with imagine her naked.

The morning her daughter Astha found her, she was in the worst condition. But this was the moment when she decided to fight back. “I don’t want to die like this,” Bhumi told herself then.

She contacted the police, changed her phone number and threw away the SIM card, and when they started calling her daughter, she did the same. Bhumi advised friends, family and colleagues to ignore the calls and messages, and eventually they almost stopped.

Bhumi found support from her sisters, her boss and an online community of others who had been abused by loan apps. But her daughter became the main source of strength.

“I must have done something good if I have a daughter like that,” says the woman. “If she hadn’t supported me, I would have been one of the many people who committed suicide because of scammers.”

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