Odisha STF Arrests 5th Accused In OTP-Sharing Scam Involving Pak Agents

Bhubaneswar: The STF of Odisha Crime Branch has nabbed one more accused in the OTP-sharing scam in which four persons, including a teacher, were earlier arrested for allegedly sharing OTPs with operatives of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents.

The accused, identified as Pritam Kar of Bari Ramchandrapur area of Jajpur district, was arrested on Saturday.

According to an official release, Pritam and his associates had been doing this illegal business of OTP sharing, mule accounts/ pre-activated digital wallets selling to cyber criminals including PIO/ISI agents since 2017.

The accused was in direct touch with at least two PIO/ISI agents and had physically met them multiple times in other states and had recently received Rs 1.5 lakh for selling OTP/ mule accounts/ digital wallets.

It is also learnt that the SIM and debit card used by the accused in last year’s Mangalore Auto blast (terror act) was provided by Pritam. He has sold thousands of pre-activated SIM cards, OTPs and mule accounts/ digital wallets till date.

He used to charge up to Rs 1000 per SIM and up to Rs 30,000 per accounts for mule accounts/ digital wallets. He used to sell mule accounts/ digital wallets of India Post Payment Bank (IPPB), FiNO care, HDFC, Axis, Yes Bank, ICICI, Airtel Payment Bank, Paytm Bank etc.

He and his associate used to contact the customers through various WhatsApp group, Facebook messenger groups and Telegram groups. He used to make WhatsApp voice call/chat to many foreign numbers too. He was the admin of the Whatsapp group named “All saving AC available” having 113 members, it said.

He is also member of numerous such groups like Online-Offline Seller, OTP shop-6, All OTP available, OTP Sell/ Buy Adda, OTC KYC deals, Online Project daily, Indian top OTP group, KYC Compliance, Best OTP group, KYC Zone Etc. Further investigation in this case is in progress, the release added.