Russian man arrested for running 6 loansharking companies in HCMC

After monitoring the six companies, which have their offices in Binh Thanh District, and noticing suspicious signs, they carried out raids in April, seized documents and other data related to illegal money lending, and shut them down.

The firms, Phuc Loc Tho, Bao Tin Kim Long, Gofigo, Infobot, Infinity and Solution Lab, were licensed to offer pawn broking, accounting, auditing, and legal services, but did nothing except lend money at usurious rates through websites senmo.vn, thantaioi.vn and caydenthan.vn.

They all had shared a single system and employees.

According to the police, their lending activities were systematic with managers and advertising and customer service staff verifying and guiding borrowers every step of the way to get the loans online.

They found that the companies had charged annual rates of 183% to 2,555%, or 10-128 times the legal limit.

Zubkov was recently identified as the mastermind behind the operations and was arrested on Monday.

The police also arrested 22 directors and managers working at the six companies following the raids.