Seventh Suspect in OTP-related Fraud Arrested in Assam by Odisha STF
In a statement, the Odisha crime branch’s Special Task Force announced the arrest of an additional suspect in the one-time password-sharing scam, who is believed to have connections with Pakistani Intelligence operatives.
Earlier, six accused have been arrested in the same case.
The accused, identified as Mohammad Ekbal Hussain, was apprehended from Assam’s Nagaon district on September 19, the agency said in a statement on Friday.
The accused was produced in Nagaon local court on Friday and was brought to Bhubaneswar after 5 days of transport examination. He will be produced in the Bhubaneswar court today, according to the STF statement.
Ajaya Narayan Pankaj, Inspector General STF Odisha said six accused were arrested earlier in this case.
“During investigation, the police found that Hussain was in touch with earlier arrested accused Abhijit Deshmukh. He was also in touch with Khurram alias Abdul Hamid, who is suspected to be a Pakistani intelligence officer,” the statement added.
“He has sold multiple WhatsApp account OTP, Telegram account OTP and Mule/Ghost accounts directly to Hamid,” according to the statement.
“After the arrest of main accused Pathani Samanta Lenka and his associates, accused Hussain switched off his phone and went underground,” the statement said.
During the investigation, it was found that he used at least 37 IMEI (handset) numbers and more than 500 SIM cards.
“The accused confessed to the crime and said that he had been selling WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram activated fake SIM cards, Mule/Ghost accounts etc. for two years and earned ₹50,000-60,000 per month,” it said. said.
According to the statement, the accused also revealed the involvement of other people from his hometown. The police said they were verifying his claims.
The operative modus operandi was to use the mobile phones for a month and then destroy them by throwing them in a river to prevent police from tracking them, it added.
