Panaji : In a crackdown on online prostitution network, the Goa Crime Branch has busted a countrywide escort racket operating through a web of illicit websites, and arrested three men from Nerul in Bardez taluka.
According to sources in the Crime Branch, the arrested accused – V Narayanrao (40), a native of Shivamogga, Karnataka, Shahbaz Khan (33) from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh and Manjunath Shahshetty (36) from Bidar, Karnataka – were the creators, operators and managers of multiple websites engaged in dissemination of sexually explicit and objectionable content. They were arrested in the early hours of March 14.
The operation followed a joint surveillance conducted by the Crime Branch and the Social Media Monitoring Cell, which tracked several escort websites for a considerable period of time.
On March 9, 22 such websites were blocked by the authorities following an FIR registered under Section 67 of the IT Act and Section 6 of Indecent Representation of Women’s Act against the websites.
Technical investigation led the sleuths to Narayanrao, identified as the mastermind, who is believed to have been running the prostitution racket across major Indian cities such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur and Delhi. During a raid conducted, a mobile phone linked to an escort site, four additional mobile phones and a laptop were seized by the Crime Branch.
Bank account analysis revealed that all the three accused received payment from the victims via Google Pay and other UPI (Unified Payments Interface) platforms. Consequently, Section 4 of the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act was invoked and the primary accused’s bank account, containing Rs 2.34 lakh, was frozen.
The accused have been remanded into police custody. The entire operation was conducted under the supervision of SP Crime Rahul Gupta and Superintendent of Police Jivba Dalvi, with a team led by police inspectors Manguesh Valvaikar, Vikas Deykar and police sub-inspector Amin Naik among others.
