Sex racket busted in Kochi; six arrested

Kochi: The cops on Tuesday busted a city-based sex racket that used to draw clients through a free classified website and arrested six persons in this connection. The arrested were identified as V P Dinu (32), a native of Kaloor, Gireesh Kumar (18) of Kasaragod and Ashwin R Shenoy (28), a resident of Aluva. Three Kochi-based women, including Dinu’s wife, were also taken into custody. Acting on a tip- off, a police team raided a rented house at Karanakodam in Tammanam from where the racket operated. The incident comes two days after the cops arrested five persons, members of another online sex racket, from a rented house near the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

“The accused used to draw clients by placing advertisements on www.locanto.in- a free classifieds website, offering young women for dating. During interrogation, they confessed to charging exorbitant amounts from the clients and also hinted at the involvement of more persons. A further probe is on,” police said. The number of cases of flesh trade using free online websites has increased in recent times. “Busting of such rackets is difficult due to technical issues attached to tracing the location of the websites,” police said.