Legal analysis: Small amounts and a small number of private loans between normal natural persons are legal and protected by law. However, the act of illegally and disguisedly absorbing unspecified public deposits in the form of loans constitutes the crime of illegally absorbing public deposits, which is illegal and requires criminal liability.

Legal basis: Article 176 of the "Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China" , shall be concurrently or solely fined not less than 20,000 yuan but not more than 200,000 yuan; if the amount is huge or there are other serious circumstances, the person shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than 10 years, and shall also be fined not less than 50,000 yuan but not more than 500,000 yuan.

If a unit commits the crime in the preceding paragraph, the unit shall be fined, and the person directly in charge or other directly responsible personnel shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.