This is the first story from our investigative series on ‘The Shady Business of Stolen Footage’ where we uncover the vast underground economy built on stolen footage and broken privacy. Contribute to this series here.
It’s a clip from an infrared surveillance camera — filmed from an angle that shows a nearly empty movie hall in Thiruvananthapuram. The footage contains no evidence of theft, piracy, or any criminal activity.
On the left side of the hall, a couple sits near the front row. As the movie plays, they can be seen being intimate with each other.
What the couple, and countless moviegoers like them, don’t realise is that hundreds of such clips end up on platforms like Instagram and Telegram, where they are sold as soft porn. Buyers are willing to pay up to ₹20,000 for such footage.
In these videos, the faces of those captured are clearly visible. While the installation of surveillance cameras inside theatres is legally authorised, the leakage and sale of such footage is entirely non-consensual and illegal.
Over the last four months, TNM investigated India's shady business which uncovers how hundreds of leaked CCTV videos from movie halls have become currency in an expanding underground economy. Our trail took us to three theatres in Thiruvananthapuram.
Inside the underground voyeur economy
In July, a TNM reader reached out to our team to alert us about video clips of couples making out inside cinema halls being circulated on X (formerly Twitter). Over the next few weeks, we tracked down seven accounts on X and Instagram that were sharing such content to understand the extent and reach of these videos.
One X account named ‘Geetha,' with over 17,000 followers, was filled with leaked CCTV footage from places like theatres and offices. Some videos also showed women being groped or sexually harassed.
All these posts had one thing in common: They re-directed users to Telegram channels.
Most of these posts carried identical captions. One post with four short clips, for instance, read: “Premium collection available for Theatre CCTV, Home CCTV, Hostel CCTV, Office CCTV.”
The caption continued: “For more demo videos, follow my Telegram channel,” followed by links to the channels.
To trace this ecosystem, I joined two such Telegram channels and posed as a potential buyer. The profile had no phone number, just a display photo of a woman with mid-length hair, smiling. The profiles led me to footage from at least a dozen theatres, and in it, three theatres from Kerala were visibly identifiable.
When I messaged the account asking for theatre CCTV visuals, I received a response within minutes — a link to a group called ‘Geetha Payment Proof’. The group had 4,863 members, presumably potential buyers, and was filled with screenshots of payment confirmations.
The account holder also sent a catalogue listing the types of videos for sale.