Noida Porn Racket: A major online pornography racket spanning international borders was busted in Noida. The operation was allegedly run by Ujjwal Kishore and his wife, Neelu Srivastava, who have been at the helm of the enterprise for five years.
The couple exploited social media platforms, notably Facebook, to recruit models and upload content on adult sites from their residence, media reports said. The Enforcement Directorate discovered a professional webcam studio set up in their flat to broadcast content found on adult streaming platforms like OnlyFans.
They set up a page titled 'echato dot com' that promised modelling opportunities with lucrative salaries. Women from the Delhi-NCR region were enticed by advertisements offering monthly remunerations between Rs 1 to 2 lakh. They would know about the illegal pornography business upon arriving at the couple's flat.
The models were asked to perform tasks based on the payments made by customers. They would have to do things in different categories like half-face shows, full-face shows, and full nudity. Customers would buy tokens to access these services, with varying charges depending on the category. The couple would keep 75 per cent of the earnings, and only 25 per cent was shared with the models.
Foreign Funding And Misrepresentation
The racket, which involved substantial foreign funding, was linked to a Cyprus-based company called Technius Limited. This firm is known for operating popular adult entertainment websites such as Xhamster and Stripchat. According to sources, the couple transferred funds to foreign companies by misrepresenting the purpose codes in bank transactions, falsely declaring these as payments for advertising and market research.
Enforcement Directorate Raid And Findings
ED raided the couple’s Noida home, where officers claimed to have uncovered illegal foreign funding totalling Rs 15.66 crore. Further investigations revealed that Ujjwal Kishore had previously been involved in a similar racket in Russia before relocating to India and starting the current operation with his wife.