Aesthetic surgery loan fraud not pretty for microlender
All of the suspects were rounded up in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, in a recent police raid.
A total of 13 suspects have been taken into custody for allegedly defrauding a microlender, with some of them being employees of the company, Shanghai police said on Wednesday.
Police in Huangpu District started their investigation recently after the microlender, which is headquartered in the district, reported that its branch in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou had more than 10 million yuan (US$1.5 million) of default loans, and all of it was related to its business cooperation with a company that offers aesthetic surgeries.
Police, like the microlender, smelt a fraud and embarked on their investigation which led to astonishing findings.
The aesthetic surgery business recommended the microlender to its clients who were short of money for its services.
The clients would sign loan contracts with the lender on falsely stated surgery items so that the money loaned was often beyond the cost of the actual surgeries they were to undergo. The surplus loan amount went into the pocket of the aesthetic service provider, police said.
At the same time, some salespeople of the lender allegedly took bribes from both the aesthetic service provider and the loan applicants to turn a blind eye in approving loans to people with low credit ratings.
All of the suspects were rounded up in Guangzhou in a recent raid by the police.
