On Saturday night, a model-actress from Tamil Nadu was arrested from a five-star hotel through a decoy customer. Senior inspector Bhanupratap Barge, who heads the Social Security Cell, said, “In the last four months, we have busted five high-profile sex rackets. Actresses or models were involved in three cases. We cannot infer that more prostitutes from outside are coming to Pune, but definitely more information about them is coming our way, helping us to bust these rackets.”

On November 1, police arrested a 30-year-old Turkmenistan national with her agent from an apartment in a posh society in Kothrud. Police had traced her through an advertisement about an escort agency in a newspaper. “Many agents solicit customers through newspaper advertisements for massage centres and escort services. Though we can crack these cases through decoy customers, there are difficulties taking the cases to the conviction stage. After we transfer these cases to the police station, the accused get bail. Plus, decoy customers cannot become witnesses as we have to protect their identities.”