In India, the activities of a fraudulent cartel that specialized in the use of one-time passwords and operated in the American market were uncovered. The local NDTV channel devoted a 25-minute investigation to this investigation, “Inside The OTP Mafia: Nuh To New York” (Nuh is a city in the Indian state of Haryana, where the transnational group was based). During the filming, journalists were able to talk not only with employees of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, but also with several cartel leaders.
“The gangsters running this cartel are not some savvy techies sitting behind big screens on fancy computers in big cities. These men and women have dropped out of school and are working from the comfort of their huts set up in the fields of Jamtara, Nuh, Mathura, Bharatpur and many other villages,” the film says.
The activities of the cartel have blurred distances and boundaries to the maximum: residents of Noida (Uttar Pradesh state, New Delhi metropolitan area) calmly call residents of New York, located thousands of kilometers away. Statistics show that at least 45 thousand Americans became victims of such calls last year. The scammers’ arsenal includes the simplest mobile phones, hundreds of SIM cards and bank accounts of village drops who are not even aware of their role in the global scam scheme.
“At least 140 cases of such fraud are registered in the United States every day. We rely heavily on Indian law enforcement agencies to combat this transnational phenomenon. Some villagers in this country are learning to speak like Americans by watching thousands of videos on YouTube and studying other social media platforms, a senior FBI official told NDTV. “In some cases, victims of scams lose from several hundred to several thousand dollars, which may be all their savings.”
Thousands of SIM cards are used in OTP scams. In April 2023, New Delhi police confiscated 22,000 cards from just one group. Several men involved in the scam, who were arrested and later released on bail, told NDTV that they spend the loot on entertainment and a brighter life.
“The gangsters running this cartel are not some savvy techies sitting behind big screens on fancy computers in big cities. These men and women have dropped out of school and are working from the comfort of their huts set up in the fields of Jamtara, Nuh, Mathura, Bharatpur and many other villages,” the film says.
The activities of the cartel have blurred distances and boundaries to the maximum: residents of Noida (Uttar Pradesh state, New Delhi metropolitan area) calmly call residents of New York, located thousands of kilometers away. Statistics show that at least 45 thousand Americans became victims of such calls last year. The scammers’ arsenal includes the simplest mobile phones, hundreds of SIM cards and bank accounts of village drops who are not even aware of their role in the global scam scheme.
“At least 140 cases of such fraud are registered in the United States every day. We rely heavily on Indian law enforcement agencies to combat this transnational phenomenon. Some villagers in this country are learning to speak like Americans by watching thousands of videos on YouTube and studying other social media platforms, a senior FBI official told NDTV. “In some cases, victims of scams lose from several hundred to several thousand dollars, which may be all their savings.”
Thousands of SIM cards are used in OTP scams. In April 2023, New Delhi police confiscated 22,000 cards from just one group. Several men involved in the scam, who were arrested and later released on bail, told NDTV that they spend the loot on entertainment and a brighter life.
