we will have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. phone rings the promise is an instant loan. the reality is a nightmare.

across india, at least 60 people have taken their own lives after being abused and blackmailed by loan apps. bbc eye investigations goes undercover to reveal the scam that's plaguing india... ..and to expose the people making money from misery, fear and shame. this is how the trap is set.

you get a message saying you've been approved for an instant loan. all you have to do is download the app, accept the terms and conditions... ..and the money is yours. what you don't know is you're already in the trap. the app is extracting all your personal information — your id cards, your photos and videos... ..the names and numbers of yourfamily, your colleagues, yourfriends. that's when the extortion begins. my name is poonam agarwal. i am an investigative reporter. last year, i began to hear stories about people scammed by loan apps.

most victims are too ashamed to talk, but one wanted to warn of the dangers of the trap. bhoomi moved from loan app to loan app, borrowing one loan to pay another, often getting 30 or a0 calls a day.

eventually, she paid them off. but one app, asan loan, kept calling. asan loan had photoshopped bhoomi's face onto this porn image and sent it to every contact on her phone.

i'm getting too...

it had been hard to find a victim willing to talk. it was even harder to find a perpetrator. eventually, though, i got in touch with a young guy, rohan — not his real name — who had worked recovering money for loan apps.

to expose the scam, i needed evidence. so, i asked rohan to wear a secret camera and take us inside a call centre. rohan is going inside majesty legal. lock beeps this delhi—based company doesn't give out loans. it calls borrowers on behalf of the loan apps to chase payments. most calls are polite.

but if you don't pay on time, things start to get nasty. rohan had gathered crucial evidence of abuse, but some of his colleagues were getting suspicious.

it wasn't safe to send rohan back, but now he told me about another call centre — a place in noida — where the abuse was said to be even worse. they were recruiting agents, and rohan applied for a job. while rohan was undercover, i was still trying to find out who had harassed bhoomi to the brink of suicide. we had heard that many of these apps are owned by chinese investors, but we could find no name or address. the app just said asan loan. eventually, ifound a name for the man running asan loan... ..parshuram takve. takve had a facebook page... ..and a chinese wife named liang tian tian.

he also had a criminal record. takve had been running debt recovery for multiple loan apps. complaints had piled up — extortion, blackmail, the use of obscene images. in december 2020, he had been arrested and released on bail. the facebook account was locked, and the man had vanished. but in pune, ifound someone who used to work for parshuram ta kve. takve was running recovery

for many loan apps. and then the worst happened — customers began taking their own lives. we know of at least three

people who killed themselves after being shamed by takve�*s recovery agents. they aren't just numbers. they all had a name, a family and a future. in telangana, ifound the parents of one of them... ..a 24—year—old woman called mounika.

was there no limit to the misery the loan apps would inflict? it made me even more determined to expose the people profiting from the trap. then, i got a call from rohan. he had been accepted for the job at the call centre in noida.

lock beeps this is the callflex corporation, a call centre that recovers money for loan apps, including one called paysense. most calls are respectful. but, just like in the first call centre, if you fail to pay, the tone changes. if you still don't pay, the threats begin.

rohan�*s new colleagues were brazen about the tactics they used. after three weeks filming secretly inside the call centre, rohan met me in a park.

so, rohan arranged a meeting with the manager. he went with another undercover reporter posing as an investor. they asked vishal chaurasia to explain exactly how loan recovery works.

abuse was effective, but even more powerful was shame. the manager had distilled the scam to its essence — call centres recover money for loan apps by threatening to destroy people's lives.

breaking news coming in. when it comes to the crackdown on chinese loan apps, that's our top focus on the bulletin. the indian authorities were starting to crack down on the loan apps. in april 2022, parshuram takve and his chinese wife were charged with extortion, intimidation and abetment of suicide. by the end of the year, they were on the run. behind takve, there's

a whole web of companies. parshuram takve was the director of four businesses. his chinese wife, liang tian tian, gave her name to the largest, jiyaliang, which recovered money for predatory loan apps. some of those loan apps were set up or supported by two chinese—owned companies. behind both of them was a mysterious businessman called li xiang. li xiang kept himself well—hidden. we found nothing online — no social media accounts and no photos. but the money trail led to one city... ..hong kong. here, we found a phone number linked to one of his employees. posing as investors, we asked if he could set up a meeting with li xiang.

hello? ni hao. hey, hey. li xiang, ni hao. hao. ni hao. li xiang was quick to tell us about his fintech and loan app businesses in india. then li xiang made the key admission — his companies, controlled from hong kong, harvest indians�* contacts and exploit them to recover loans. their recovery plan is precise.

finally, we had a face for li xiang... ..and evidence that he was profiting from the misery of ordinary people. parshuram takve used extortion, intimidation and fear in order to recover money. at least some of that money ended up in the accounts of this man.

when i started this investigation, i never imagined the misery i would find. at least 60 indians, many of them very young, have killed themselves after being blackmailed and shamed by the loan apps. it was heartbreaking. but despite the suffering, the scam continues. a year after parshuram takve went on the run, his app, asan loan, is still trading, still abusing, still destroying lives. in mumbai, though, bhoomi was starting to rebuild hers.

if you have been affected by this story, head to the action line at the website below. hello. a big change in the feel

of the weather this weekend. it's been unseasonably mild and that mild weather has brought quite a bit of rain during the day. on friday, it brought half a month of rain to places like santon downham but already, the changes were with us further north, and that's all courtesy of the wind direction. now, that rain, having cleared away, has allowed this blast of north—westerly winds to sweep southwards. now, really tightly packed isobars mean we've got severe gales in some northern parts of scotland but it's the wind direction coming down from the arctic that will affect all parts this weekend and make it feel much colder — even colder because of the wind chill, which is bringing through wintry showers across the hills, notjust for scotland, perhaps the sperrin and antrim mountains and into cumbria eryri as well, snowdonia, so a much colder night. some frost to hit across north east england and the glens of scotland. enough wind to prevent a widespread frost or, indeed, any mist and fog problems, really, but this weekend starts colder and windy. the wind should ease down a bit

by sunday but it's certainly a feature of the weather as we go through the first part of saturday. those showers coming through thick and fast, adding to the chill feel, and they're around the irish sea coast first thing but they will migrate inland, so nowhere exempt from getting a shower but always more prevalent in the north and west. but there will be heavy rumbles of thunder and some hail, as well as the wintriness over the hills and only ten to 13 or 14 in the south — that's six to eight degrees below where they have been, particularly in the south this week. now, the showers and the winds ease a little bit during sunday but they keep pestering northern and western areas but there will be a more widespread ground frost — probably our coldest night of the autumn so far. in fact, this is the coldest blast of the autumn so far. but it does mean, again, a good deal of sunshine first thing. mind you, at this time of year, there will be a few pockets of fog around which can take till mid—morning to clear to watch out for if you're travelling. showers or perhaps more cloud in the north and the west of scotland.

temperatures, though, a little lower than saturday's but with lighter winds and a bit more sunshine, fewer showers. i should imagine not feeling quite as chilly. and then later into next week or at the early part of next week again, we've got the chilly nights, the frosty and foggy mornings but temperatures do pick up later in the week as the unsettled weather returns. there's more online.

live from washington,

this is bbc news. a week on from hamas�*s devastating assault on israel, more than 3000 people have died on both sides of a war that could be on the brink of a major escalation. civilians are fleeing northern gaza by any means they can — cars, trucks, or on foot after israel warned them to move south. as israeli air strikes on gaza continue, the un secretary general warns that evacuating more than a million people would be extremely hazardous. and the us secretary of state continues his whirlwind diplomatic mission, saying he's working with israel on a safe passage for the palestinians. hello. i'm helena humphrey. it's been one week since hamas militants launched a deadly and coordinated

attack on israel. thousands of israelis and palestinians have been