The arrest of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) scientist Pradeep Kurulkar, who fell prey to honey trap, has shed light on the modus operandi adopted by the Pakistan Intelligence Operative (PIO) to reach out to officials and members from defence forces.
According to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Kurulkar fell prey to the honey trap in September 2022 and shared basic information about missiles such as BrahMos and Agni with the woman.
ATS sources say that the PIO may have forged her identity while speaking to Kurulkar, who was arrested earlier this month.
As a common modus operandi in cybercrime, details and pictures of people are stolen, and are then sold to such agencies.
“Usually, a PIO hires women to speak to the victims. However, the picture used by them in their profile photo or even the pictures shared by them maybe of some other person. It may not necessarily be the same person who is talking to him,” said a source privy to the investigation.
He added that the person who is trapping them forges her identity, creating a fake background and story about herself on the basis of the background of the victim to lure him. The location of this woman is often disclosed as that from some other country.
Also, the phone number used to contact the victim is obtained through spoofing. In this case, through several websites and applications, the accused gets a fake number based on selection of a country code, and then communicates with the victim through that number, which in reality does not exist.
“We have figured this out through our knowledge and investigation. However, we do not really know how things operate in Pakistan, because we cannot get access to it. Also, the latter part of our investigation will be difficult because we do not have any treaty with Pakistan to share information on such cases. They might not co-operate with our investigation,” said the source.