Cyberabad police busts major human trafficking racket

Hyderabad: The Cyberabad police, on Tuesday, busted a major human trafficking racket in the City involving several brokers and thousands of victims from various countries. 17 individuals were arrested for being involved in online and offline prostitution and around 34 mobile phones along with MDMA drugs were seized.

Cyberabad Police Commissioner Stephen Raveendra said that the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) of the Cyberabad police carried out an operation for around two months, along with other Special Operations Teams and local police, and arrested 17 persons involved in the case.

"As per our analysis, around 14,000 women were trafficked by the organisers in the last three to four years. The prostitution racket was hybridly carried out in both offline and online mediums, through websites, smartphone based applications and social media platforms," said Stephen Raveendra.

The Cyberabad top cop said that during the course of investigation they found that the activity was being conducted from around 20 hotels in the City and numerous OYO rooms. "The gangs were maintaining contact with each other through WhatsApp groups and were arranging travel and accommodation facilities for both the customers and victims as well," he said.