Bhubaneswar: Intensifying crackdown on scamsters involved in sharing OTP to cyber criminals and Pakistani Intelligence Operatives, the Special Task Force (STF) of Odisha Police today apprehended another accused from Jajpur district.
The accused has been identified as Pritam Kar (31) of Burunga village within Bari Ramchandrapur police station limits in Jajpur district. He was produced before SDJM Bhubaneswar court today and will be brought on remand likely by Thursday, a police official said.
The police official further informed that Pritam Kar used to run the scam under the garb of a street vendor, and so far Rs 6.5 lakh has been detected in this bank account, while 10 SIM cards, 8 debit & credit cards, and 16 mobile have been seized from him.
About two months ago, the NIA had taken the accused, Pritam Kar, for interrogation in connection with an auto blast in Mangalore last year. It is learnt that the SIM and Debit card used by the accused in the blast were provided by Pritam Kar.
According to STF, the accused Pritam Kar had sold thousands of SIMs/digital wallets/mule accounts through social media messaging applications and those SIMs/wallets/cards were used by cybercriminals & ISI agents.
Earlier four accused— Pathanisamant Lenka, Saroj Kumar Nayak, Soumya Pattanaik, and Pradyumna Kumar Sahoo were arrested in this case. The gang members were doing this illegal business of sharing OTPs, selling mule accounts/pre-activated digital wallets to cyber criminals including PIO/ISI agents since 2017. Pritam is said to be a very close associate of accused Soumya Pattanaik, the police said.
The STF said that accused Pritam was in direct touch with at least two PIO/ISI agents and had physically met them multiple times in other states. He had recently received Rs 1.5 lakh for selling OTP/ Mule accounts/ digital wallets.
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 India Post Payment Bank (IPPB), FiNO care, HDFC, Axis, Yes Bank, ICICI, Airtel Payment Bank, Paytm Bank etc, the STF said.
Pritam 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.
The STF also stated that the accused Pritam Kar was the admin of the WhatsApp group named “All Saving AC available” having 113 members. 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’ and ‘KYC Zone’ etc. Further investigation of this case is on., the STF added.
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