Odisha Police arrest school dropout for sharing OTP with Pakistan intelligence operatives, fifth accused held

“It is also learnt that the SIM and Debit card used by the accused in last year’s Mangalore Auto blast, (a terror act), was provided by Pritam Kar. He had recently received Rs 1.5 lakh for selling OTP/ Mule accounts/ digital wallets,” said JN Pankaj, inspector general, STF, Odisha.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has been probing into the Mangalore blast on November, 2022 injuring the auto-driver and a passenger, who is also the prime accused in the case.

According to STF sources, Pritam Kar, a school dropout (8th pass) and runs a grocery shop in the village, 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. He also used to sell mule accounts/ digital wallets of India Post Payment Bank (IPPB), FiNO care, HDFC, Axis, Yes Bank, ICICI, Airtel Payment Bank, Paytm Bank etc.

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.

According to STF sources, the accused was the admin of the Whatsapp group named “All saving AC available” having 113 members and member of various suspected Whatsapp group.

“Pritam and his associates are doing the illegal business of OTP sharing and selling mule accounts/pre-activated digital wallets to cyber criminals including PIO/ISI agents since 2017. Further probe is on into the matter,” said Pankaj.

Earlier, the STF has arrested three persons including a teacher of an Industrial Training Institute (ITI) on May 14 and a fourth accused on June 8 on similar charges. Unlike Pritam, these four accused had not physically met with the PIOs.