Indian Government Investigates Over 230 Illegal Gambling Apps

Recently, the Indian government uncovered roughly 230 illegal gambling and money-lending apps being used in the country. While the government is still deciding how to rule on real money online casinos in India, illegal gambling apps are currently saturating the market. These apps were built and based within China. The government now needs to take action to ensure these apps are shut down safely and effectively.

What Problems These Apps Pose

According to Indian authorities, these apps pose a threat to Indian society. They have mentioned said apps to be damaging to the ‘integrity and sovereignty of India’. According to the report, 138 gambling-based apps and 94 money lending apps were discovered.

The government has urged the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to take swift action against all offending apps. At the time of writing, the government has not yet released the names of the offending applications. This makes it difficult for Indian citizens to know which apps to trust and which are dangerous.

How The Apps Have Been Targeting Victims

Multiple citizens of India have reported problems linked to one or more of these applications. People taking out loans, then being extorted by the app creators thereafter. The victims would take out loans, then suddenly be hit with annual interest rate hikes as high as 3000%.

When the victims could not make payment, they were then targeted by the app owners. Victims would be harassed by the organizers. Since they had downloaded the criminal apps, the app owners had gained access to their smart devices. As such, victims were threatened of inappropriate photos of them being sent to their entire contact list if they did not make payment.

How The Apps Were Discovered

Investigation into the suspicious applications came about after numerous suicide reports were made throughout India with similar causes. Government officials noticed similar patterns. As such, they delved deeper into the money lending apps during the middle of last year.

At first, they uncovered 28 money lending apps. But as the investigation deepened, they finally uncovered a total of 94 illegal loan applications.

What To Do As A Citizen

As previously mentioned, the government has not yet released the names of said apps. This complicates things for Indian citizens as they don’t know what to look out for. However, there are a few precautions you can take for the time being.

Firstly, be aware of the applications you are downloading. If it cannot be found on a trusted application store, and can only be found on an obscure website, do not download it. However, some of these fraudulent apps can be found on popular app stores. The best thing to do is be vigilant of any money lending apps for the foreseeable future.