Hyd police asks Google to remove 221 fake apps from play store

Hyderabad: The Cybercrime police has written to multi-national technology giant Google about 221 illegal online loan apps, requesting to the search engine management to remove them from Google Play Store.

With several complaints of harassment by online loan apps and cheating, the social media team identified several apps, particularly on Play Store. The police said following a detailed verification of many of the apps, an investigation into several online loan app cases had revealed that 221 apps were illegal and many of them fake too.

"The organisers and fraudsters are creating such illegal and fake apps and placing them on Play Store, which is downloaded by unsuspecting users believing them to be genuine," a senior official said.

As a precautionary measure, the police wrote to Google two days ago briefing them about these apps and listing the reasons why they should be removed from the medium. "Earlier too, we had identified some illegal and fake apps which were not as per the Reserve Bank of India guidelines and requested Google to take them down. We will continue to identify such apps and bring them to the notice of the Google management," the official said.