Nine women rescued from fake contest

ISTANBUL – Turkish military police said yesterday that they had stormed an Istanbul villa to rescue nine women held captive after being tricked into believing they were reality show contestants.

The women were rescued on Monday in the villa in Riva, a summer resort on the outskirts of Istanbul, a spokesman for the military police in the region who carried out the raid told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to give details of the raid to the media. He said the women were held captive for around two months but refused to provide further details.The women were made to believe they were being filmed for a Big Brother-type television show, the private Dogan news agency and other news reports said, without citing sources. Instead, their naked images were sold on the Internet, the reports said.The women had responded to an ad searching for contestants for a reality show that would be aired on a major Turkish television station, Dogan said. The nine, including a teenager, were selected among several applicants following an interview, it said.They were made to sign a contract that stipulated that they could have no contact with their families or the outside world and would have to pay a 50 000 Turkish Lira fine (N$247 500) if they left the show before two months, the agency reported.The women were told they could not leave unless they paid the fine and those who insisted were threatened, Dogan said.The girls were reportedly models from the Mediterranean resort of Antalya and the Aegean port city of Izmir.’We were not after the money but we thought our daughter could have the chance of becoming famous if she took part in the contest,’ the newspaper quoted one of the women’s mother as saying. The paper identified her only by her first name, Remziye. ‘But they have duped us all.’She said the women were not abused or harassed sexually.They were told however, to fight each other, to wear bikinis and dance by villa’s pool, the paper quoted the mother as saying.HaberTurk said police detained four people who lived with the women at the villa at all times. – Nampa-AP