Bhubaneswar: The Special Task Force (STF) of Odisha Police has decided to invoke the National Security Act (NSA) against Pathanisamant Lenka, mastermind of fake SIM cards and OTP sharing scam.
According to reports, the STF decided to invoke NSA after Lenka’s links with Pakistani intelligence agents was established.
The STF has arrested three persons Pathanisamant Lenka, Saroj Kumar Nayak, and Soumya Pattanaik on the charges of selling and sharing OTP with some criminals and anti-national elements. A total of 19 costly mobile phones, 47 SIM cards, 61 ATM cards, and 23 SIM covers were seized from them.
The STF is probe further since when Patani was in touch with the Pakistani agents. Besides, the telecom service provider organization has also been brought under the purview of investigation.
A letter has also been written by the STF to the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) to ascertain the data of Applications through with the accused persons have received money.
As per STF officials, the accused were fraudulently procuring huge numbers of SIM cards in the name of others and used them to sell 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 were paid by some Pakistani agents based in India. Moreover, they were in touch with a female PIO agent, who was arrested in an Official Secrets Act/ Honey-Trap case in Rajasthan last year, the STF officials said.
