What began as classifieds, Locanto and Skokka are now hotspots for organised prostitution, cyber frauds

Popularly popularly popularly popular for buying and selling goods, and to find business or rental, platforms such as Locanto have turned into digital backstries for organized prostitution, sex and financial frauds. Although Skokka was positioned as ‘adult classified’, it has become a hunting area for human traffickers and conmens, imprisoned users in prostitution rackets and sexy frauds.

Police said that scammers armed anonymity presented by such sites and used it as a virtual ‘silk route’ to achieve their goals. Those who seek the services advertised on these platforms are often deceived, forced and even criminal.

In August this year, Cyberabad arrested nine people for carrying out a prostitution ring from a luxury hotel in Madhapur. Inspectors found that women were trafficking from India and abroad, and their profiles advertised in Locanto and Skokka before they organized encounters in city hotels and OYO rooms. Among the victims were women from Western Bengal, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Jharkhand and two foreign nationals from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

The trend was not isolated. In December 2024, Haydarabad police raided an apartment in Tarnaka, which was announced by the Ugandalı citizens again via Locanto. Only months ago, in August 2024, 14 women from Kenya, two from Uganda and Tanzania-17 women were rescued from a three-storey building in Kondapore, where a network was working in cities. Police, the organizer, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Haydarabad customers to exhibit “escort services” to exhibit all categories in Locanto, he said.

“He may have lost his platform’s brightness with real users, but this decline was an opportunity for tribute,” he said. “It has become an efficient ground for prostitution networks and frauds, because anonymity is guaranteed until a raid. Until then, many victims have already trapped.”

Inspectors say that scammers benefit from technical gaps and international servers to stay in front of execution. “Masked Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, servers based on abroad, many of them from countries such as Cyprus and England and VPNs, the servers, make them extremely difficult to watch. Somehow, because of the layers, they add that the layers are necessary, for the local police.

Uz We wrote it over and over again in Locanto, but they do not share the original names, contact information or the location of its users. What they provide is just an identity.

“Any application can be abused, Locanto is just an example of an example. However, since it is not in India, there is nothing clear that we can block or organize or organize it.

Authorities warned that abuse is not limited to advertisements. Marriage portals and flirting applications have become hunting areas for scammers who have made false profiles to attract victims to financial fraud or honey traps. “At least 60% of these platforms are fake, unjust and ending with fraud,” he said.

The police say these cases point to a deeper difficulty. Every time an racket appears, the nets re -emerge under new guisler, and accountability remains a blind spot.

Hindu He reached out for a comment from Locanto and Skokka and will be updated after responding to the story.