The Crime Branch has opened a prefatory investigation into the workings of increasingly popular mobile phone applications that extend loans and cash advances to subscribers without much collateral or red-tape.
S. Sreejith, Additional Director General of Police, Crime Branch, told The Hindu that the inquiry would determine whether such impromptu financing land citizens in extortionate debt traps, rendering borrowers vulnerable to intimidation and suicide.
The Crime Branch would also probe whether the attractively packaged mobile phone-based loan schemes had Reserve Bank of India (RBI) sanction.
Mr. Sreejith said so far the police have not stumbled upon any criminality. However, the agency would investigate whether the digital financial operations violated the law. The CB has sought information from police stations across Kerala on money lending-related crimes and unnatural deaths.
SPC directive
State Police Chief (SPC) Loknath Behera had ordered the probe based on reports that the…