The Ministry of Home Affairs issued a letter directing all the states and union territories to take strict action against illegal lending apps in the country, which have led to "multiple suicides", the Hindustan Times reported. These illegal apps harass, blackmail and use harsh recovery practices against users, a copy of the letter shared by Journalist Arti Singh reveals. The letter is dated 28th September 2022. Interestingly, the letter also extended the support of central agencies to states in solving illegal lending-apps-related crimes. "Law enforcement agencies can avail the services of National Crime Forensic Laboratory (NCFL), one of the verticals of Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), CIS Division for Technical Assistance on loan apps analysis, malware analysis and crypto transaction tracing," the letter said. https://twitter.com/artijourno/status/1586426969935052802?s=20&t=BoONDB4NpfXt9RXU8_Ql5Q Why it matters: Medianama has previously reported on how these apps 'extort' money from people using predatory practices and many of them have been found to be linked to China. The issue is on Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's radar as well, and even the RBI is working on the problem by working a "whitelist" of the lending apps that are legal in India. Moreover, the enforcement directorate and state police are doing their bit to catch the perpetrators. However, this has proved to be a challenge for them due to the complexity of the financial transactions involved. The number of suicides that have occurred due to lending apps is still not clear but Congress leader Jairam Ramesh claimed the number of to be as…
