The accused were arrested for allegedly procuring SIM cards in fake names and sharing their OTPs with Pakistani intelligence operatives.
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The Special Task Force (STF) of Odisha Police has detected crypto currency trading transactions to the tune of over Rs one crore from two persons arrested earlier for allegedly procuring SIM cards in fake names and sharing their OTPs with Pakistani intelligence operatives.
The one-time passwords (OTPs) were used to create fake accounts on social media for pursuing anti-India activities. The accused were selling 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.
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“During investigation, it was found that the two accused persons- Pritam Kar of Jajpur and Saroj Kumar Nayak of Nayagarh- were involved in crypto trading through various Indian and foreign Exchanges. Kar had signed up with a leading crypto Exchange using E- Mail ID. Two Bank accounts and one Unified Payments Interface (UPI ID of the accused were linked with the said exchange”, STF said in a statement on Wednesday.
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On analysis of the Crypto trade history of the particular ID,it came to surface that in the time period of two years, the volume of trade in the account was more than Rs 1 crore.
The account had red flag areas in terms of crypto deposits from unidentified sources majorly from exchanges namely Coinbase, FTX and Bitmart all located outside India and also transfer of crypto assets to exchanges out of India, the statement said.
Further investigations revealed that the accused Kar was referred by a dubious person on the Crypto platform, having a referral history of thousands of people. Probe revealed that the accused Saroj Kumar Nayak had signed in a leading crypto exchange using E-mail ID.
His User ID is linked with two saving Bank accounts numbers and two UPI-ID. Money was withdrawn using crypto exchanges based outside India, STF said, adding that the crypto accounts of Kar and Nayak were blocked.
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