Inside the fake 'Big Brother' house where nine women were tricked into believing they were on a reality TV show for two months



This is the Istanbul villa where nine women were rescued by Turkish military police after being tricked into believing they were reality TV show contestants.

On Monday police stormed the villa in Riva, a summer resort on the outskirts of Istanbul.



A police spokesman said the women were held captive for around two months but refused to provide further details.

Fake show: The villa where nine captive women were rescued by Turkish military police in Istanbul

Fooled: The nine women, whose naked images were reportedly sold over the internet

The women were apparently made to believe they were being filmed for a Big Brother-type television show, according to the private Dogan news agency.



Instead, their naked images were sold on the Internet, reports said.



The women had responded to an advert 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.

A bedroom inside the villa where nine captive women were rescued by Turkish military police in Istanbul

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 (£23,000) if they left the show before two months, the agency reported.

The women are said to have soon realized they were being duped and asked to leave the villa but told they could not leave unless they paid the fine and those who insisted were threatened.

There were conflicting reports as to how the raid occurred.



The Dogan agency said police stormed the villa after some family members complained to police that they were being prevented from contacting the women. The women cried for help when the military police arrived at the villa, it said.



HaberTurk newspaper said one of the women managed to contact a family member and asked for help. The paper did not give a source for the report.

There were also conflicting reports concerning the age of the teenager, thought to have been in the house.

Mock-up: A gazebo outside the villa - apparently the women were threatened when they asked to leave after realising they were being duped

Dogan said she was 16 while HaberTurk newspaper gave her age as 15.



HaberTurk said the girls were models from in 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. 'But they have duped us all,' the newspaper quoted one of the women's mothers as saying identifying her only by her first name, Remziye.

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.

Duped: Another bedroom inside the villa where the nine women lived for around two months

HaberTurk said police detained four people who lived with the women at the villa at all times.



They were released from custody pending the outcome of a trial, the report said.



Their identities were not released and it was not know what the charges were.



It is not unusual for Turkish courts to release suspects from custody if the charges brought don't carry long prison sentences, and the suspects are not likely to escape or tamper with evidence.



HaberTurk said police were still looking for the gang's leader who sold images of the women on the internet.



Police refused to comment on the suspects or the charges brought.



The 'Big Brother' TV show, which is called 'Someone is Watching Us' in Turkish, confines a group of people to a house under the constant gaze of cameras.



Contestants are evicted one by one from the house.