A number of nude photos leaked online recently of Chinese women who put them up as collateral for high-interest loans.
Around 10 gigabytes of nude and sexual photos and videos were released, China’s People’s Daily reported.
JD Capital’s Jiedaibao, a Chinese peer-to-peer lending platform, is at the heart of the issue. Dubious lenders created the loans-for-porn scheme on Jiedaibao.
Lenders target customers who might be denied a loan at a traditional financial institution, providing loans with interest rates up to 30 percent.
Most of the loans were for figures between $300 and $900.
The photos and videos were released in a zip file called “stupid girl.zip,” according to the Global Times. There were hundreds of photos and videos in the file, with some of the internal file names indicating that some of the borrowers would be willing to repay the loans with sex.
The photos and videos are a form of blackmail. If a borrower fails to pay up, the lender will release the files to the internet.
Lenders would also threaten to send the collected files to the friends and family of the borrower.
“I borrowed 15,000 yuan ($2,180) on July 18, 2016. The loan is due on August 18,2016. The interest rate is 50 percent. I have taken videos of myself masturbating and nude pictures as a mortgage. If I cannot pay back on time, I will be solely responsible for it,” the text accompanying one picture reads.
Of the leaked files, this is not even the most graphic.
Photos, videos, and texts for 161 women were spread online on Nov. 30. The personal information for 144 women was exposed.
The photos were spread through WeChat and QQ, Chinese social networking platform.
Reports indicate that around two-thirds of the women were college students. Four were born in 1998, and seven were born in 1999.
The oldest borrower was 47.
Jiedaibao announced on Dec. 1 that the loans-for-porn scheme was beyond the company’s ability to regulate; however, it involved the police after the leak occurred. ”
“We have called the police and collected evidence to protect the company’s reputation. Those who leaked the nude pictures will be punished according to law,” the company said in an official announcement.
Jiedaibao has reportedly managed to track down some of the lenders and freeze their activities.
Unregulated peer-to-peer lending platforms in China have been involved in numerous cases of illegal activity, with fraud being the most significant problem.
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