In a further development in the alleged pornography racket, the Mumbai Crime Branch has claimed that businessman Raj Kundra spent lakhs on advertising the HotShots app on leading porn websites. The details were revealed in emails extracted from Kundra’s phone. Crime Branch sources said that this debunks Kundra’s claim that the content was erotica and not pornography and that he did not have any knowledge about the app’s working. During his remand hearing on Tuesday, Kundra was remanded in judicial custody.

Senior officers said that they have been able to extract a bunch of emails from Kundra’s phone and found that he was running the app from India and sent emails to a company that helps give advertisements on leading porn websites. “With the help of cyber forensics, we have extracted emails from Kundra’s mobile phone. They were sent to the advertising platform TrafficJunky from info@hotshotworld.com. Further analysis revealed invoices of Kenrin Limited, emails related to ad overview (Android) ad overview (iOS) and payment receipts,” an officer said.