The changing trend of sex trade in Patna has a new platform — Facebook.

It has come to light that Facebook is being used as a medium to deal with customers, who were shown pictures of girls and then rates were fixed after police busted two rackets on May 30 and 31.

The May 31 case is serious considering the fact that the racket was running from a Shivpuri-based residence of Shailendra Kumar Singh, a head clerk posted in the office of Patna district magistrate N. Saravana Kumar.

Patna SSP Manu Maharaaj said: “Singh was aware that his house was being used for the illegal trade. Sex trade on Facebook is a new trend. Singh had given his house on rent to the people who were involved in this. Singh has two more houses in different areas of Patna. He had kept them under wraps because they do not figure in his income tax returns. We will refer these to the economic offences unit so that a property confiscation process could be initiated.”

In the May 31 raid, two others were arrested from Singh’s house. “An arrested customer said one Rakesh Kumar, who is said to be the coordinator of the racket, had contacted him on Facebook and during one of the chats, had sent him pictures of girls asking him to choose one or more. The address of the spot was also sent via chat. People running the sex racket have contacts with many customers. We have found albums which have explicit pictures of girls. They used to get anything between Rs 300 and Rs 500, while Rakesh used to charge anything between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000 from each customer. This is for the first time that Facebook and e-mails are being used for the trade,” the SSP said.

On May 30, Agamkuan police bust a racket in a Gandhi Nagar house and nabbed three men and an equal number of women in compromising positions. Here too, the customers were contacted on Facebook.