Loan sharks now asking women for nude pictures as security

Loans are notoriously hard to get for most college students because they are not eligible for such facilities from standard lenders. Desperate to get the much needed funds, some ingenious Chinese students are now agreeing to almost anything, including providing nude photos of themselves as collateral to unscrupulous loan sharks.

The disgusting practice was brought to national attention when a victim – a university student going by the pseudonym of Li Li – desperately sought help from the police after loan sharks requested that she send them a photo of herself in the nude, holding her ID card.

The online loan shark group had granted her Sh7,600 (a 500 yuan) loan in February with a weekly interest rate of 30 per cent. Unable to pay it back in time, the debt inflated beyond Sh153,988 (10,000 yuan) in a very short while, and at one point the loan sharks threaten not to renew her loan unless she also provided a nude photo of herself holding her ID, which Li reluctantly agreed to.

However, after four months, her debt had inflated to Sh846,936 (55,000 yuan), with the lenders threatening to send the embarrassing photos to her parents and relatives or sell it to highest bidder. At which point she went to the police asking for help.

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