Police said Rs 18,000 was extorted in the present case, with investigators suspecting more victims.A former loan recovery agent, a network of mule accounts, and an app that identifies pending car EMIs by scanning number plates — this is how a gang of five, posing as loan recovery agents, allegedly assaulted and extorted owners of cars and other vehicles with pending EMI installments, police said on Sunday. Four members of the racket were arrested Saturday, with one still at large.The four, arrested by officers from Shakarpur police station, allegedly used a mobile application to identify vehicles with pending EMIs, intercepted owners on busy roads, and coerced them into making on-the-spot digital payments.The arrested accused have been identified as Prince, Aakash, Shivam, and Teetu alias Tittu.The case came to light after a complaint was filed by one Keshav Kumar, who told police he had been stopped near ITO on Vikas Marg on March 26 by occupants of a white car. Kumar alleged that he was assaulted, and threatened before being forced to transfer money online. An FIR was subsequently registered on March 27 under relevant sections of the BNS.Police said Rs 18,000 was extorted in the present case, with investigators suspecting more victims. Over the past year, at least 32 people were coerced into transferring money into a mule account of the accused, police said.According to police, the alleged extortion began last year when Prince left his job at a private loan recovery firm in Shalimar Bagh, after stumbling upon what he believed was a quick way to make money.“The firm Prince worked for has a private app. It contained the details of the vehicles whose EMIs were pending with banks, and whose recovery was outsourced to the firm. Only employees were logged into the app, via KYCs,” a police officer said.Story continues below this adPrince realised he could exploit this information by posing as a bank official and approaching car owners privately. According to the police, he roped in two friends, Shivam and Teetu, both from his hometown in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, and the three subsequently brought in a fourth accomplice, Aakash.“They then started making a list of these vehicles, and tracking their owners. The accused would use a white Brezza car, without a number plate, to intercept the owners of the car. They would then claim to be recovery agents, and assault the car owners till they gave them money, “an officer said.The gang allegedly promised owners that no agent would trouble them for the next six months if they paid up.The payments were made by the vehicle owners into a mule account, the QR code for which Prince kept on his phone, police said.Story continues below this ad“They would threaten seizure of the vehicle and use intimidation to force immediate payment. The 32 payments were made into just one account. We are searching for the fifth accused,” an officer said.To track the accused, officers leveraged a combination of technical surveillance and local intelligence. Police said that a tip-off pointed to individuals from Baghpat using a mobile app to filter targets based on pending loan installments. Call detail records (CDR), location tracking, and mobile data analysis then placed the suspects at ITO, leading to a series of raids across Delhi and the arrest of the four accused, police said.