One more held for sharing OTP with Pak agent

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Crime Branch STF has apprehended one more suspect in the OTP-sharing scam, in which three people, including a teacher, were previously arrested for allegedly sharing OTPs with Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents in Pakistan.

The accused, Pradyumna Kumar Sahoo of Nayagarh, was apprehended on Wednesday.

According to an official announcement, Sahoo is a graduate who previously worked as a territory sales executive for Idea and as a Jio Point manager. He is currently employed by Black Buck, a Fastag company.

"He had supplied/sold more than 500 pre-activated SIMs and 150+ pre-activated Paytm Wallets to Pathani Samanta Lenka, who had previously been arrested in this case." These SIM cards and wallets were sold to a variety of cyber criminals as well as Pakistani Intelligence Operatives (PIOs). Some of the SIM cards and wallets were also used by PIOs/ISI agents, some of whom were based in Pakistan's Karachi and Baluchistan," the report continued.

According to the investigation, the accused "used to generate multiple SIMs on the same identity by duping/tricking unsuspecting customers/SIM buyers under the guise of some technical issues/glitches."It was discovered that registered mobile numbers linked to the Bank Account are required for the activation of various wallets such as PhonePe, Google Pay, and others. 

However, in the case of a Paytm wallet account, customers can share their user ID and password with others (with different mobile numbers) to operate the account once OTP verification is enabled."

The STF will investigate/analyze this and, if necessary, will contact Paytm to change the settings, it added.

Raids were conducted last month, and three accused persons, Pathani Samanta Lenka (ITI Teacher), Saroj Kumar Nayak, and Soumya Pattanaik, were arrested for allegedly fraudulently procuring large numbers of SIMs in the names of others and selling the OTPs (linked/generated using the SIMs) to various clients, including some PIOs/ISI agents in Pakistan and India. They were compensated by Pakistani agents based in India. 

For at least a year, they sold OTPs and mule bank accounts to cyber fraudsters and foreign nationals in their greed for quick cash.

These OTPs were used to create accounts/channels on social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, and others, as well as online shopping sites such as Amazon and Flipkart. These are also used to create new email accounts. These social media platforms were used by Pakistan-based agents for anti-national activities such as spying, communicating with terrorists, radicalization, spreading anti-India propaganda, and fueling anti-India and divisive sentiments. People trusted these accounts because they were registered/linked to an Indian mobile number.

They were also in the business of creating and selling mule accounts through social media groups, which were then used in various types of crimes, according to the STF.

Notably, the National Security Act (NSA) has been used against Lenka, the alleged scheme mastermind. He allegedly fled after a suspected ISI agent, Guddu Kumar, was apprehended by West Bengal police in December of last year.