FIA raids loan app office over ‘debt-driven suicide’

Teams also seal facility, seize laptops, equipment during searches

ISLAMABAD:

A team of the cybercrime wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raided the office of the Bharosa App in Islamabad’s Sector G-8 after their employees were nominated in a case pertaining to blackmail that drove a debt-ridden man to suicide.

The FIA team seized the records, laptops, data devices and other equipment from the office of the loan app and launched investigations. It was also revealed during the raid that five employees of the company were foreigners.

Those privy to developments said that the FIA team conducted two raids. It wasn’t clear if the raids were conducted at offices of two different lending apps. They added that the office in sector G-8/4 had been sealed.

Debt-stricken Muhammad Masood, 42, committed suicide earlier this weekday after being pressurised and blackmailed by the app employees into returning the borrowed money with high interest. He had taken an initial loan of Rs13,000 but missed deadlines and sky-hit interest meant that he owed two lenders more than Rs700,000.

The accused had been threatening to leak personal data from the cell phone of Muhammad Masood who narrated the story of the app employees’ blackmailing in his last message. The grief-stricken widow of Muhammad Masood stated that her husband had committed suicide after constantly being blackmailed by the loan app employees. A ‘suicide voice note’ sent by the victim also stated that he was driven to it because of the threats from employees of the lending app. An audio of the phone call of an employee of Bharosa App has also come to the fore in which the accused can be heard threatening Usama, a nephew of Muhammad Masood, of leaking personal data from the cell phone in case of the non-payment of the loan. The FIA cybercrime team director had met the mother and wife of the deceased. The family had filed an application to the FIA Cybercrime Wing Rawalpindi for the registration of a case.

FIA officials said that the Cybercrime Circle Rawalpindi has started an investigation regarding the Rawalpindi incident also at the request of the relatives of the victim and on the calls received by the victim.

They added that the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) had been contacted for information regarding these digital lenders.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2023.