Mumbai Man Ends Life After Loan App Agents Circulate Morphed Photos; Harassment Cases on Rise, Say Police

A Mumbai resident ended his life after “recovery agents” of an instant loan app allegedly sent morphed nude photographs of him to his colleagues, relatives, and friends while they were collecting information about his loan. The victim, Sandeep Koregoankar from Malad, granted access to his mobile data thereby enabling the accused to send the photos, DCP (Zone XII) Somnath Ghagre told Times of India.

Such loan app cases are on the rise, Ghagre said. The victim’s brother, Dattaguru, told TOI Sandeep had said that he had no pending payments and yet he was harassed. “The culprits did the unimaginable by morphing his photos and circulating them to his colleagues on Whatsapp,” the brother said.

Kurar police have registered a case of abetment of suicide, cheating, defamation, and identity theft against the five persons who used their SIM cards to forward the compromised photos with a lewd text reading: “Koregaonkar has failed to repay the loans he has taken.”

As per TOI report, a Kurar police officer said Sandeep had called his brother Dattaguru on April 24 and insisted he had not taken taken any loan from any app but the recovery agents had been harassing him by calling, abusing and threatening him to repay it.

There is no information with police regarding the loan amount.

The victim died by suicide on May 4 between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. on Wednesday when no family members were home. His wife had gone to work and his brother, brother’s family and his parents had gone to their native place to attend a wedding. Sandeep, mid-April, had told his family that he would end his life.

Sandeep’s colleague told TOI that he had kept to himself in office for two weeks after learning that 50-plus of their staff had received the morphed pictures. “He felt deeply humiliated and had slipped into depression,” the colleague said.

The police have reportedly collected screenshots of threats and abuses by the loan app agents from some phones.

“There are rising instances of people looking for a loan availability and installing such apps that access and steal data from phones and misuse it,” a cop said.

A cyber expert said that a prospective borrower’s data can be accesses when they download the app.

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