Slovak police Vice-president Jaroslav Spišiak revealed details about the prostitution ring. PHOTO - TASR

BRATISLAVA - Czech and Slovak police have charged 25 people with running an internet-based global prostitution ring using 230 women, many of whom were forced into selling their bodies for sex, officials said last Wednesday. The group posed as the Eli modelling agency, luring girls with promises of work as hostesses at events round the world, but then forcing them into prostitution, Slovak Police First Vice-President Jaroslav Spisiak told Reuters. "They were invited to castings, where they had pictures taken, mostly in underwear or naked -- then they were gradually told that they will have to offer sex if the client wants," Spisiak said.

The girls were offered over the internet and spent up to a week with clients wherever they requested them, including Japan, western Europe, the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The agency, based in Nitra, northeast of Bratislava, with a branch in the Czech Republic, made between 10 million and 30 million Slovak crowns a month, Spisiak said. "If the girls refused ... the agency told them they must pay at least 50,000 Slovak crowns ($1,500) for services, pictures, or at least work to pay off the cost," he said, adding that some of the women had become prostitutes without coercion.

The Czech police said in a statement that the agency charged clients around 9,000 euros a week for a woman, of which the women kept 30 percent. Leaders of the ring in Slovakia face up to 15 years jail, or even an exceptional punishment of life imprisonment, if found guilty of criminal collusion and trading in people. Seven of the 15 people charged in Slovakia are in detention and the rest are believed to be abroad. The Czechs detained and charged 10 people. Reuters