NCA Unveils A Crime-As-A-Service Operation, Charges The Thee Ringleaders
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The National Crime Agency (NCA) recently investigated a criminal platform called www.OTP.Agency (one-time passcode). The platform was run by three men — Callum Picari (23) from Hornchurch, Aza Siddeeque (19) from Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, and Vijayasidhurshan Vijayanathan (21) from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
The trio used the platform to offer their services to criminals, charging them a monthly subscription fee of £380. In return, subscribers were allowed to access personal bank accounts and other accounts online, commit account takeovers, engage in fraud, and steal money from their victims.
The basic £30 subscription granted them access to the OTP.Agency spoof call bot, which tricked victim account holders into disclosing genuine one-time passcodes for their online accounts. By doing this, criminals were able to bypass 2FA typically used on telecom and banking platforms.
Those who paid £380 got the elite plan that granted them a free text-to-speech service, where they could type out any message and have an automated call read it to the victims. The trio who ran the website even created pre-scripted calls designed to target customers. The authorities were able to recover scripts that showed that the criminals pretended to be Mastercard, Visa, Virgin Media, Sky, BT, and HMRC.
The agency also shared that more than 12,500 people were targeted, and more than 65,000 spoof calls took place between September 2019 and March 2021. So far, it is unknown how much money the group managed to make, but some estimates say that they would have made £90,000 from 3,000 subscribers if they only bought the basic plan, and £7.9 million if they purchased the elite plan every week.
As for the trio, they were charged with conspiracy to make and supply articles used in fraud. Picari was also charged with money laundering, back in January 2023. Initially, they denied that they were aware of being involved in criminality, but they ended up admitting the charges at Snaresbrook Crown Court, and pleading guilty.
Picari was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison, while his co-conspirators received 12-month community orders, accompanied by a £760 fine per person. On top of that, Vijayanathan and Siddeeque will have to undertake 200 and 160 hours of community service respectively.
