Telugu celebrities went abroad to get drugs, data mining unravels links

Twelve celebrities from the film industry have been summoned by the Excise department in connection with the Hyderabad Drugs haul case.

The Telangana Excise department officials are said to have found links between frequent foreign trips of some Telugu film industry members and the Hyderabad drugs haul case. The agency is using Data Mining technique to corroborate how celebrities went to countries like Portugal to get narcotics pre-ordered in India.

Officials from the department have relied on data mining to access data like photos, videos etc from the internet on public platforms to prove links between the accused persons, particularly Calvin Mascarenas and Nikhil Shetty, and the celebrities. The team has learnt that many stars visited Portugal, a country where drugs have been decriminalised multiple times. While that in itself will not be enough to prove a link, data in the possession of the officials have given them a head start while questioning those summoned.

One after another, twelve celebrities from the Telugu Film industry including director Puri Jagganath, Baahubali actor Subbaraju, Tarun have appeared before the SIT. Ravi Teja, a mega star is yet to appear along with two more actresses. The officials have prepared individual files on each of those summoned that contains information on why and how investigators zeroed in on them over links to the accused in the drugs haul case.

Photos and videos from social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram have been traced back to the place, time and location of the celebrities when they allegedly met with those involved in the racket. Many of these photos are from foreign countries including Portugal and Bangkok. Despite the officials producing pictures of the celebrities with accused in the case, they have allegedly denied knowing them.

Apart from relying on social media networks, officials have zeroed in on celebrities based on telephone records, WhatsApp messages via international numbers and locations of accused at the time of conversations. On Saturday popular actor Tarun appeared before the Excise department officials.

OneIndia News