IT SEEMED the big break of which every aspiring starlet dreams - the chance to take part in a Big Brother-style show promising fame and fortune.
But a group of celebrity-hungry Turkish models found themselves the victims of an elaborate con in which pictures of them naked and in skimpy bikinis were sold on the internet.
The nine, aged 16 to 24, spent two months in a villa outside Istanbul, where they were encouraged to frolic naked by a swimming pool, walk around in bikinis and engage in catfights with one another. They did so willingly, believing they were in the Turkish equivalent of the reality show.
Instead they were being filmed around the clock by a gang of conmen, who sold compromising photographs of them on the internet. The women started to become suspicious because no one was being voted out of the house.
Police said on Thursday that they had rescued the women after storming the villa in Riva, on the outskirts of Istanbul, on Monday. They acted after relatives of one of the victims complained that they were barred from contacting them.
A military police spokesman said they had been held for about two months. They had to sign a contract banning contact with their families and the outside world, and fining them 50,000 Turkish lira ($38,500) if they left before two months.
Police arrested four people who were living in the villa but were still seeking the leader.