Bhubaneswar: The West Bengal STF seems to have a bigger job at hand in connection with the recently-busted racket involving procuring of huge numbers of pre-activated SIM cards and selling the OTPs to some Pakistani Intelligence Operatives (PIO) and ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) agents in Pakistan.
Reportedly, the West Bengal STF is likely to take arrested Pathanisamant Lenka on five-day remand. Besides, the NIA is also planning to grill him after completion of the remand period.
Worth mentioning, the accused were fraudulently procuring huge numbers of SIMs in other’s name and selling the OTPs (linked/generated using the SIMs) to various clients including some Pakistani Intelligence Operatives (PIO)/ ISI agents in Pakistan as well as in India. In return they would be paid by some Pakistani agents based in India.
They were also in the touch with a female PIO agent who was arrested last year in an Official secrets Act/ Honey-Trap case in Rajsthan.
These OTPs were than used to create various accounts/ Channels on social media like Whatsapp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram etc. and also on online shopping site like Amazon, Flipkart etc. These are also used in opening email accounts. People will think that these accounts are owned by an Indian but actually operated from Pakistan.
These social media platform than will be used in various kinds of Anti-India activities like Spying, communication with terrorists, radicalization, running anti-India propaganda, fuelling anti-India/ divisive sentiments on social media, sextortion, Honey-trapping etc. As these accounts are registered/linked on an Indian mobile numbers people find it trustworthy.
