New Delhi: Two months ago, Maruf Hasan, an investigative reporter at The Dissent, had no idea he would write one of Bangladesh’s most viral stories of 2025. Or that the report would eclipse stories on the country’s fast-changing political landscape and expose Bangladesh’s most famous porn couple.
Published on 16 October, the story exposed the couple’s illegal porn recruitment drive across Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram for young couples, and opened up a debate on individual rights and public morality.
Hasan, 22, told ThePrint over the phone how, after two months of online searches and trips to Chittagong and Manikganj, he got to report the couple’s story, which would eventually lead to their arrest.
“I don’t want to label the couple as criminals or victims. According to Bangladeshi law, what they did is definitely a crime because they weren’t just creating content themselves—they were also trying to lure young couples into this world through social media by offering them money,” Hasan told ThePrint.
Village smut to global industry
It all began when Hasan noticed some sexually provocative posts on his Facebook feed and pictures that had captions such as “Click the link below to watch the video.” He saved a few links, thinking they might be useful for a story later.
“After a few days, I kept seeing the same woman’s photo over and over again. I got curious, who is she? Then I saw a Reel from a Facebook account with the same woman, and her bio read: ‘Bangladesh’s number one model’,” Hasan said. That caught Hasan’s attention—if she was indeed the country’s number one model, why had no one heard of her?
“Something didn’t add up.”
When he checked the ‘About’ section, Hasan found a link to a porn website and an Instagram account. On the platform, he saw the same link and several posts promoting adult content. One post even mentioned a Telegram group that people could join. At first, Hasan thought that they were operating from another country. Then he saw a video where the woman was counting money, and it was Bangladeshi currency.
Hasan shared his findings with his editor, and they decided that he should join the Telegram group to see what was happening. Once Hasan entered the site, he saw how young Bangladeshis were being lured into porn for quick money.
That’s when his investigation began.
In his story, Hasan named the couple A and B to hide their identities.
He found a Telegram channel created under the girl (B)’s name on 22 May 2024, which had around 2,000 members. The channel was jointly managed by B and A.
The channel had been created using a number belonging to B and registered under her national ID. The main admin of the group used another number, registered under A’s national ID card. The channels were regularly updated with content related to their pornographic videos.
On 9 September, A posted a link to one of their videos with the caption: “New video published, enjoy boys.” Each time they release a new video, they would share the link in these channels. By 30 September 2025, Hasan documented around 70 such video links, all originating from their various adult website profiles.
On 24 May 2025, circulated two photos showing payment transactions from an account of another adult website. The screenshots indicated transfers totalling around 1,50,000 Bangladeshi Taka. He captioned the images: “Money power.”
On 14 June 2025, A posted a photo of the dashboard from B’s adult website account, displaying revenue vouchers from May to December 2024 that totalled $15,703. A week later, he shared another image of the same dashboard with the caption: “Income from one video 100,000 BDT (Bangladeshi Taka),” along with a note of thanks to the platform.
Hasan found that these were not isolated posts. Within the same Telegram group, he identified at least 10 additional posts from B and A, flaunting earnings from porn websites, often sharing screenshots of their reported income.
On 12 October, A shared a photo in the Telegram group, showing the dashboard of B’s Facebook profile. As the videos and photos shared from these accounts had never appeared on any other platform before, their authenticity was verified through reverse searches.
B’s Facebook account had around 49,000 followers, while her Instagram account had over 12,000. In the bio section of both accounts, she openly identified herself as a porn creator and provided a direct link to her adult website.
Until 10 October 2025, the Instagram account contained 356 posts, with the first published on 3 May 2024. “A significant number of these posts promote her pornographic content and direct followers to her Telegram group. Other posts depict what she portrayed as a lavish and carefree lifestyle, frequently featuring drugs and marijuana-related imagery. Similar posts were also shared on her Facebook account,” Hasan told ThePrint.
More than 10 posts displayed large sums of cash, while others highlighted expensive assets, including motorbikes and a private car. “The captions consistently emphasised money as a central theme, projecting an image that wealth can buy anything—and that her lifestyle is funded entirely by income from the porn industry,” Hasan said. “These posts drew reactions from users expressing interest in joining the porn industry.”
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‘Defamed because of A’
Hasan spent two months on the story, travelled for two days to Chittagong and one day to Manikganj, to see where the celeb couple of the Bangladeshi porn industry operated from. But before that, he dug out A’s number from his posts and talked to him over the phone. A refused to meet him.
From the details on A’s national ID card, Hasan would get to know he was from Anwara Upazila in Chittagong.
“Yes, he is a person from the dark world. Our village is being defamed because of him,” Md Faruk, an auto driver and A’s neighbour, told Hasan during his Chittagong visit. “His whole family is known for their involvement in different kinds of crimes.”
When asked if he knew anything about A’s occupation, the man said that A ran an online business involving boys and girls. “Sometimes, he comes to the village on a motorcycle with a girl sitting on the back,” Faruk said.
Md Mofiz, a local businessman, added to the story. “His father used to be a rickshaw puller, but now, from the way they behave, it seems they are millionaires,” he said.
When Hasan visited A’s house, he found it locked. A woman next door said that the family had not been staying there regularly and only came for brief visits. B’s national ID card said she was from Harirampur Upazila in Manikganj. Unable to find A, Hasan travelled to Manikganj.
When Hasan visited the location in Manikganj mentioned in B’s ID card, it was identified as the house of her first husband, who is a fisherman. The man’s father confirmed that B was his daughter-in-law.
“But she left home one day eight years ago and never returned,” he told Hasan. Hasan would also meet B’s father, who seemed embarrassed to talk about his daughter.
“We haven’t had any contact with her for the past year. I have disowned her,” he said.
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Focus of the story
Hasan’s investigation revealed that A studied up to class three, while B’s father claimed she studied up to class four. Both came from poor families, yet their social media profiles portrayed a life of wealth and luxury.
“Online porn videos had changed their lives. It is not that there were no porn couples in Bangladesh before. But this was the first time a couple had uploaded their intimate videos without covering their faces and also so openly invited others to upload theirs,” Hasan said.
Though he couldn’t meet A and B, Hasan spoke with A over the phone. He told Hasan that around March last year, he met an Indian on Telegram who taught him how to open an account on the website and earn money from it. That’s when, according to A, he opened his account and started uploading videos.
“A told me his parents and family members knew they were doing porn. When I asked him if he forced B to act as a porn star, he refused to answer. ‘I’m not going to tell you everything,’ he said. A also told me B was now his wife,” Hasan said.
Four days after Hasan’s story was published, the Bangladeshi press reported that the couple had been arrested. Though Hasan didn’t identify the couple in his story, news reports of their arrest named them.
“After the issue was reported in a news outlet, they [the couple] moved to Bandarban, rented a house under a false identity, and continued their operations,” Dhaka Tribune reported on 20 October.
Even as the story of Bangladesh’s ‘global porn couple’ became viral, the debate over individual rights and public morality sprang up. “Yes, there are laws, and the young couple must have flouted some of them. But last year, the Women’s Reform Commission had made 433 recommendations to the interim government, including a proposal to recognise domestic workers and sex workers as labourers under the labour law,” Adily Suzanne Rehana, a Canadian-Bangladeshi women’s rights activist, told ThePrint.
According to her, the focus of the story must change.
“This is a story of a poor couple trying to make ends meet by any means. This is also a story of the need for recognising sex workers and their rights and taking a relook at old laws,” she added.
Earlier this year, thousands of Bangladeshis took to the streets of Dhaka to oppose the interim government’s proposed recommendations for women. Leaders of the Islamist party Hefazat-e-Islam had claimed that the draft recommendations of the Women’s Affairs Reform Commission instituted by the Muhammad Yunus government were contradictory to Sharia law.
Deep Halder is an author and a contributing editor at ThePrint. He tweets @deepscribble.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)