Child pornography racket on WhatsApp group busted by CBI; 20-yr-old arrested from UP

NEW DELHI: A child pornography racket operating internationally through a WhatsApp group was busted by the Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday. The action resulted in an arrest of a 20-year-old unemployed youth from Uttar Pradesh's Kannauj. The CBI carried out searches at several locations in Delhi, Mumbai and Noida and Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh after it registered a case of under the Information Technology Act. 20-year-old Nikhil Verma, son of a small worker in a jewellery firm, who is pursuing his graduation in commerce and is currently unemployed was arrested, reported PTI. The WhatsApp group “KidsXXX” had 119 members from countries including the US, China, Brazil, New Zealand, Mexico, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Brazil, Kenya and Nigeria among others. The probe agency has recovered mobile phones, laptops, and hard discs and other digital devices during searches. Along with Nikhil four others -- Nafees Reza and Zahid of Delhi, Satyendra Om Prakash Chauhan of Mumbai and Adarsh of Noida -- were also booked. The agency which acted on its own intelligence toiled for nearly three months, without using any WhatsApp surveillance, to track down the accused merely on the basis of fieldwork of obtaining corroborating evidence, a CBI official told PTI. Accessing, producing, recording, uploading or circulating child abuse videos or pictures are serious offences under Information Technology Act and attract a punishment up to seven years and a fine of Rs 10 lakh.