HYDERABAD: In a surprising revelation, four peddlers who were arrested in connection with selling psychotropic drugs were found to be communicating with their customers utilising a feature offered by social media applications, specifically Snapchat and Instagram that cops were not familiar with.
This feature on Snapchat allows the messages to disappear once the conversation is closed. A similar feature on Instagram is called ‘vanish mode’. Depending upon the settings in one’s mobile, messages can be deleted once they are read, when they are closed, a day later or a week later.
All the four foreign nationals residing in Bengaluru who were arrested by the sleuths in the city were found to have been communicating with their customers using these features. Mobile phones seized during their investigation unearthed a whole new world for the police.
Investigation not only revealed that the accused and peddlers communicated with each other through these social media applications, they also downloaded certain applications that can hide the identity of any such applications, if arrested.
It was only during sustained interrogation that the peddlers revealed that they were using applications that can hide the presence of the social media applications on the phone.
Offered free of cost
Other applications which open a different domain over phones were also being used by the peddlers. Some of these are paid subscriptions and some are offered free of cost. It is also learnt that the peddlers and consumers were using code words like Hello Bro, Happy Weekend, How Far, Good to See You in their communications