Despite more teeth to the laws to deal with the flash trades stringently, immoral activities have been going on without any hindrence, if the police raids in the city of Hyderabad is any indication of the dens of sins.

The Cyderabad Police, on Tuesday, busted a major prostitution racket in the city involving over 14,000 women as they conducted a series of raids in some prominent hotels where 17 people including the manager of a prominent hotel were arrested.

The entire gang had been running the nefarious flesh trade though a few call centres in Bengaluru and Delhi through the Whatsapp.  Digital apps like Phone Pe, Google Pay or Paytm are used to receive the payments for the immoral activities. This has come to light during the raids.

Cyberabad Police Commissioner, Stephen Ravindra, said that they rescued around 14,190 victims. They, baiscally,  hailed from the home state Andhra Pradesh apart from Telangana, Karnataka, Delhi, Mumbai, West Bengal and Assam.

Their network even reached foreign countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, Russia and Uzbekistan,” said Ravindra adding that nearly 50 per cent women involved in this racket were from West Bengal followed by Karnataka, Maharashtra and Delhi. Around 3 per cent of the women were from foreign countries, said the police officer.

He said, out of the 17 people arrested, 7 were the key organisers while 10 others were brokers and suppliers from different cities and towns.

The victims were managed through call centres and a section of Oyo hotels for the customers. The accused already had 39 cases against them in the various police stations in the city, said the police team investigating the racket. All they had been absconding for the last several months.

Police claimed to have seized altogether 34 smartphones, cars, laptops and 2.5 gm of MDMA from their possession.

The brokers, usually, first upload the photographs of the victims on WhatsApp groups and once they were selected by the organisers, rooms and flight tickets were booked said the policemen.

It is revealed during the investigation that their photographs were uploaded on certain websites and once the customers chose a certain photograph, they arrange hotel rooms. A large share of the payment went to the organiser and the rest was divided among the call centre and the victim.