Bhubaneswar, May 17 (). The Special Task Force (STF) of Odisha Police has arrested three cyber criminals for allegedly sharing OTPs of pre-activated SIMs to some criminals and suspected Pakistani agents. A police officer gave this information on Tuesday.
Based on intelligence inputs, STF has arrested Pathani Samant Lenka (35), Saroj Kumar Nayak alias (26) and Saumya Patnaik (19) for fraudulently purchasing and selling large number of pre-activated SIM cards in the name of others . The official said the OTPs were sent to some Pakistani Intelligence operatives (PIOs) and ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) agents in Pakistan and India.
Inspector General of Police, STF, J.N. Pankaj said that the trio bought a large number of active SIM cards in the name of others and sold the OTPs to various clients including some Pakistani intelligence operatives and ISI agents for a huge amount.
He informed that he was also in touch with a lady PIO agent who was arrested last year in Rajasthan in Official Secrets Act/Honey trap case.
Pankaj said, the OTP was misused to open online bank accounts and social media handles in WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram etc.
They suspected that these social media platforms were used for various anti-India activities such as espionage, communication with terrorists, radicalization, running anti-India propaganda, fanning anti-India/divisive sentiments on social media, sextortion, honey-trapping Will go
Since these accounts are registered/linked to Indian mobile numbers, people will find them trustworthy.
OTP may also be used to open email accounts. He said that people would think that these accounts belong to an Indian, but actually they are operated from Pakistan.
We have found that all the financial transactions were done by the accused through UPI, the IGP told . Therefore, we have requested the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to provide the details of the UPI accounts.
SGK
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