Bhubaneswar: The STF of Odisha Crime Branch has detected crypto trade worth more than Rs 1 crore in the OTP-sharing scam, involving operatives of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents.
According to a press release, the investigation into the scam revealed that two accused – Pritam Kar of Jajpur and Saroj Kumar Nayak of Nayagarh – involved in crypto trading through various Indian and foreign exchanges.”Pritam Kar had signed up with a leading crypto exchange. Two bank accounts and one UPI ID of the accused was linked with the said exchange. On analysis of the crypto trade history of the particular ID over two years, the volume of trade in the account was more than Rs 1 crore,” it said.
The release further said that the account had Red Flag areas in terms of crypto deposits from unidentified sources majorly from exchanges namely Coinbase, FTX and Bitmart, all located outside India, and also transfer of crypto assets to exchanges from out of the country.
Further investigations revealed that he was referred by a dubious person on the crypto platform, having a referral history of thousands of people.
Notably, Kar was arrested on June 10 for alleged illegal business of OTP sharing, mule accounts/ pre-activated digital wallets selling to cyber criminals, including PIO/ISI agents, since 2017. He was in direct touch with at least two PIO/ISI agents, physically met them multiple times in other states and recently received Rs 1.5 lakh for selling OTP/ mule accounts/ digital wallets.
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Nayak too had signed with a leading crypto exchange. His user ID is linked with two saving bank accounts number and two UPI IDs and the volume of crypto trade is nearly Rs 3 lakh. He had also withdrawn using crypto exchanges based outside India.
The crypto accounts of both the accused have been blocked, it added.
Nayak was arrested last month along with Pathanisamant Lenka, an ITI teacher and the mastermind of the scam, and 19-year-old Soumya Pattnaik for procuring pre-activated SIM cards and selling OTPs to Pakistani intelligence operatives.
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Notably, the OTPs were used to create various accounts or channels on social media like WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, and Instagram and also on online shopping sites like Amazon, Flipkart. These were also used in opening email accounts. Most thought that these accounts were owned by an Indian, but they actually were being operated from Pakistan, the STF sources said.
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These social media platforms was then used in various kinds of anti-India activities like espionage, communication with terrorists, radicalisation, running anti-India propaganda, fuelling anti-India/ divisive sentiments on social media, sextortion and honey-trapping, STF sources added.
