By Biswanath Dash
BHUBANESWAR: One more accused arrested in OTP Sharing Scam (to Pakistani Intelligence Operatives, STF P.S Case No.10/2023).STF arrested one more accused in the above mentioned case. Earlier three accused were arrested in this case .
Pradyumna Kumar Sahoo (32 years) of Mahitama under Nuagaon of Nayagarh was arrested by STF on 07.06.2023. He is a graduate and had earlier worked as territory sales executive in Idea and as Jio Pointmanager. Now he is working at Black buck, Fastag Company. He hadsupplied/ sold more than 500 pre-activated SIMs and 150+ pre-activated PayTM Wallets to Pathani Samanta Lenka who was arrested earlier in this case.
These SIMs and Wallets were sold to various cybercriminals and PIO (Pakistani Intelligence Operatives).Some of the SIMs and wallets were used by PIOs/ ISI agents including some based/located inside Pakistan mainly from Karachi and Baluchistan. Further investigation in this regard is on. It was found that accused used to generate multiple SIMs on the same identity by fooling/tricking the unsuspecting customers/ SIM buyers onthe pretext of some technical issues/glitches.
It was learnt that for activation of different wallets i.e. PhonePe, GooglePay and others, the Registered Mobile Phone Numbers (which is linkedwith the Bank Account) are mandatory but in case of Paytm wallet account, the customer once activated the same (T) OTP verification can also share the USER ID & Password to others (having different mobile number) for operating the said account. STF will study/analyze this and if needed, will write to Paytm to change the settings.
