At first sight, it appears to be yet another lifestyle scene, the sort that pops up every day as we scroll through Instagram or TikTok. A huge luxury yacht owned by a multi-millionaire is anchored at an exotic island. On the deck are dozens of young girls clad in bikinis, dancing, drinking expensive alcoholic beverages, and above all posting images on social media that make you eat your heart out with envy. The scenery surrounding them may well vary. On occasions, it might be a stunningly sumptuous, luxury villa, sometimes a veritable palace or an ultra-exclusive entertainment complex. The multi-millionaire might be a famous Hollywood actor, a billionaire sheik from a Gulf state, an aging high-tech tycoon or a Russian oligarch.
The problem is that underneath the deceptive glossy facade of hedonism lies a considerably worrying truth, which is far from the happy-go-lucky and fun image. Welcome to the world of image trips, a euphemism used to gloss over an ugly industry that generates millions of dollars, and when taken to its extreme, may border on both mental and physical abuse, sexual assault and human trafficking.
"On one of those trips, I flew out to spend time with a sheik from the UAE in return for 10,000 euros. We went out to dinner with a number of other models from Argentina, and the sheik drank and drank, eventually becoming so inebriated that he fell over. I couldn't help laughing at the sight of this. Then, in a fit of rage, he hit me on the head with the bottle of wine he was holding. There was blood everywhere and I simply began to scream. Two of his Filipino aides helped me to the bathroom to staunch the flow of blood, and when I asked to leave they replied that this would not be possible, saying to me: 'your passport is with us, so you cannot go anywhere. Just calm down.'
The image trips industry, which in recent years has gained serious momentum, for an appropriate price, links up immensely wealthy men with young girls from all over the world, some of whom are still only teenagers. These young girls are flown either first class or on private jets to functions and parties around the world, where they are required to be seen in the proximity of the clients who have paid good money for their presence, and on occasions also to provide additional 'personal services'.
Elle, a 29-year-old model from the Netherlands, who has been involved in numerous image trips for the last decade, is one of those young girls who has been scarred by them. She is now going out to expose the dark world that lies beneath the veneer of the sparkling exterior.
"On one of those trips, I flew out to spend time with a sheik from the UAE in return for 10,000 euros. We went out to dinner with a number of other models from Argentina, and the sheik drank and drank, eventually becoming so inebriated that he fell over. I couldn't help laughing at the sight of this. Then, in a fit of rage, he hit me on the head with the bottle of wine he was holding. There was blood everywhere, and I simply began to scream. Two of his Filipino aides helped me to the bathroom to staunch the flow of blood, and when I asked to leave they replied that this would not be possible, saying to me: 'Your passport is with us, so you cannot go anywhere. Just calm down.'
"Afterwards, they took me to a huge villa where a doctor took care of me, and then the sheik arrived, he apologized to me and asked me to remain there one more night. We went to sit in the lounge and he continued drinking. At some stage, he asked one of the Argentinian models to sleep with his son. She refused, pointed at him and hold him to stop drinking so much alcohol."
Here, Elle describes a nightmare scene, which could easily have been taken from a Scorsese mafia movie: "The sheik looked at his aide and said, 'bring a knife.' Then, two guys held the Argentinian girl down by force, pressed her finger down onto a silver plate, and cut it off. All of this simply because she had dared to point at him.
"At that very moment, I really thought that I was going to die. I began to cry. The sheik became angry and threatened to hit me unless I stopped. When I was unable to stop, he stood in front of me and hit me with his belt, until I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I found myself locked up in a small closet. They left me there for hours."
"Eventually the sheik's female assistant arrived, she gave me my passport and told me that I must leave, 'otherwise I would not live.' I tried to locate that Argentinian model afterwards on social media, but I was unable to find out what had become of her. It was as though she had disappeared off the face of the earth."
An offer from Jeffrey Epstein
The story that Elle recounts does appear to be somewhat excessive, but it is far from strange to an entire industry that is based on exploitation, abuse and the constant exposure to physical danger by wealthy individuals who for the most part act under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Men who are convinced that their money can fulfill their every whim and desire, at the expense of women who lack any real means to stand up to this.
She grew up in a sleepy town in the Netherlands, she always stood out because of her rare beauty, which afforded her much attention – both positive and negative. "You need a degree of patience with me, I have never told this to a living soul," she says during our first conversation as she looks over her shoulder, ensuring that nobody is listening.
"I had a complex childhood. I was always an extraordinary girl. The girls at school were always harassing me. They would stick chewing gum in my hair, kick me, and write all sorts of lies about me. And there was a really elderly piano teacher there who sexually assaulted me. I remember that I would look on the internet for all sorts of ways of making myself ugly and unattractive. I tried putting on weight, eating raw garlic and onion. I created a habit of self-destruction, as I was unable to contend with all the torment and harassment."
"We arrived at a huge estate, and I was amazed, as I saw there some of the most beautiful works of art that I had ever seen. Dozens of other girls came to the estate from Sweden, Norway and Russia, who were really friendly. They all came from vastly different backgrounds, some of them were athletes, one was a professional tennis player and another was a cheerleader. Then, the owner's female assistant came and took us to a sort of hall where we were required to dance in front of the client. They played the worst music I had ever heard. After this finished, the assistant took us to our rooms and told us that 'they would tell us if we had been accepted.'
At some stage, she was noticed by a talent spotter from a modeling agency, after he watched her playing hockey as a young girl. She left her studies behind and began to model in campaigns all around the world. Among others, her path crossed with that of the now deceased and infamous US businessman, Jeffrey Epstein, who, according to her, proposed that she should come and live in Florida and work as his personal assistant. "As luck would have it, my mother noticed that something was not quite right with him, so I turned down his offer."
It didn't take long for her to make the shift from the regular path of modeling to the slippery slope that changed her life. "I was working on a sports clothes campaign in Cape Town, South Africa. One of the girls who was working with me, a Spanish model who was slightly wacky, would always walk around with lots of cash on her and came to work with Chanel bags. On one occasion, when I asked her where all the money was from, she told me about the possibility of going on something called an image trip, and that all I had to do was to go out for dinner. So, I thought to myself, 'Okay, that might be quite cool and interesting.'"
The Spanish girl friend explained to Elle that all she had to do was to send a clip of herself to one of the agencies dealing with the image trips. Elle filmed herself while engaged in yoga, but the Spanish girl then explained what she really need to do: "She laughed at me, explaining that this was not what the agency was looking for, and that I need 'to be sexy' and show my backside.
"I didn't really understand. What type of trip was this? After all, it was merely due to involve having dinner. But in the end, I put on a bikini and high heels and took a video of myself. I was only 19 years old. When we finished, she sent my pictures to the agent for approval, and within an hour they were already asking if I was able to fly out that very night."
At that stage, did you already understand that this would involve more than simply "having dinner"?
"No, I was really naive and I relied on my friend. We worked together and I believed what she said."
On the first image trip, she was flown out on business class. "This was my first ever flight in business class, and after landing, I was collected in a luxury car in which an American model was waiting, who had also been invited to dinner.
"We arrived at a huge estate, and I was amazed, as I saw there some of the most beautiful works of art that I had ever seen. Dozens of other girls came to the estate from Sweden, Norway and Russia, who were really friendly. They all came from vastly different backgrounds, some of them were athletes, one was a professional tennis player and another was a cheerleader. Then, the owner's female assistant came and took us to a sort of hall where we were required to dance in front of the client. They played the worst music I had ever heard. After this finished, the assistant took us to our rooms and told us that 'they would tell us if we had been accepted.'
"Sometime later they told me that the client liked me, and the female assistant asked if I could remain with him for a ten-day trip. I agreed. They then informed me and the other that we would have to undergo a checkup by a physician to discover if we suffered from any sexually transmitted diseases. I was alarmed. Why should I be checked if all that was involved was dancing?".
"I received death threats"
For ten days, Elle and the other young girls spent time "hanging out" with the client and his friends. Luckily enough, the trip went by with no untoward events, and without having to engage in any forced or problematic acts. "There was one girl who spoke to us out loud about this client's habits in bed, and I believe that there were listening devices in our rooms, as on the following day she was sent away."
At the end of the trip, Elle was given an envelope with a large amount of cash, and she claims she had never seen anything like it in her life. "I was over the moon. When I got back to Cape Town, I spread out the bank notes on the bed, I lay down on top of them and wallowed in them, just like in the movies. It was extremely funny."
At this early stage, she still felt that she had been presented with an easy and viable option to supplement her income. In addition to her regular work as a model she began to fly off to various venues to take part in image trips. Some were quite bizarre, such as a trip with the prime minister of a European state, who invited her to accompany him on a day trip to an isolated sauna in the snow-covered mountains. Some were just quite amusing, for example, a party thrown by a well-known giant car manufacturer which was held in the pyramids in Egypt, when Elle and the other models were asked to walk around dressed as Cleopatra.
But it wasn't long before Elle and her friends became aware that these trips might not be entirely free of risks. Evidence of that fact stands out in the story of T., a model whose photos had appeared on the cover page of the most illustrious global fashion magazines, including Vogue. T. opted to speak anonymously due to concern of potential damage she might incur.
"Just so that you understand the situation, until a few weeks ago I had to hire a bodyguard to accompany me, as I have received death threats over the last year and a half," she recounts and refuses to expose the identity of those threatening her due to the image trips she participated in.
"Many of the agencies that organize image trips are run by people who use these companies to engage in illegal activity, so that they are surrounded by the mafia and criminal organizations. Apart from that, on those trips, you spend time with some of the world's most famous and successful people, and it can be most dangerous. Just like human trafficking, but on a more sophisticated and illustrious level. The agents move you from client to client like a pawn on a chessboard."
Then, why go on these trips in the first place?
"It is difficult to earn lots of money in regular modeling campaigns, even if you are a very good model. Sometimes, you don't get paid for six months, and even when they do pay you, the wages are not very considerable. In contrast, on the image trips, you receive much more relative to regular modeling work. In a trip of only a few hours I would earn an amount equivalent to what I would have earned in a month doing regular modeling work. I really needed that money, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic."
Dancing in front of men
Michael Gross, a highly-acclaimed American journalist and writer, who has researched the world of modeling, sheds further light on this problematic industry. "In what we generally refer to as 'modeling business' there are white, black and gray areas," he says during a conversation with Israel Hayom. "In the white area, the upper part of this world, the models are regarded as a valuable asset and thus protected accordingly. In the lower or 'black' part, they are considered as nothing more than toilet paper – to be used and discarded."
Gross, who in 1995 published the best-selling book Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women, explains that in the middle of the pyramid of classes, in the gray zone, there are many young female models, such as T. and Elle. According to him, this area is a veritable "wild west" with no rules and no control over it.
"In the gray area, there are beautiful models who are prepared to leverage their looks, and that includes being exploited for money or promoting their career. This might involve the occasional flirt with a photographer, providing sexual services to an agent or manager, or selling their body as "candy to the eyes" and as sexual toys for the rich who are prepared to pay for the pleasure of gaining proximity to such beauty."
"Many of the agencies that organize image trips are run by people who use these companies to engage in illegal activity, so that they are surrounded by the mafia and criminal organizations. Apart from that, on those trips, you spend time with some of the world's most famous and successful people, and it can be most dangerous. Just like human trafficking, but on a more sophisticated and illustrious level. The agents move you from client to client like a pawn on a chessboard."
The "supply" of young girls for the image trips, which are sometimes also referred to as "atmosphere trips", is provided by private, greedy agents, who act as the go-betweens, mediating between the girls and famous people, multi-millionaires and company directors. Each agent controls an expansive network of candidates with whom he works, from models such as Elle and T. to social media influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers.
The "candidates" undergo an audition, usually by sending a personal video clip, but also sometimes via a face-to-face meeting – when this involves a particularly exclusive event. After they have passed the audition, the models will then usually be called on at short notice to go on trips, and in return they receive amounts ranging from 1,000 dollars to several tens of thousands of dollars per day. On most occasions, these trips will end up with a dinner or an innocuous party with music and dancing, but on occasions they might also involve an offer to engage in sexual intercourse with the host of the event or one of the participants in return for additional payment. Such trips are referred to as "extra" image trips.
Naturally, there are candidates who will prefer these extra trips from the outset, due to the large amounts of money that go with them. "On the regular trips, the money was not enough for me, so I began to ask for the 'extra' trips alone, and I gradually delved deeper and deeper into that world," admits T.
T. tells us of agents who sent her "to sleep with well-known billionaires," and exposes the heavy price that she has paid for this to this very day. "My life was ruined because of those trips. I have done so many things that I regret and which have caused me to suffer genuine trauma. I don't want any woman to go through what I have endured."
Compared with T., for a long time Elle refused to participate in the "extra" trips, but after a few regular image trips, she did finally agreed to cross the line. It occurred on the yacht of one of the most famous people in the world, an individual whose name would be instantly recognized by any reader.
"They told us that there was to be a huge two-week trip with partners of that particular client," Elle describes. "We were flown out to a beach opposite which two yachts were anchored, one for the models and one for the businessmen. Most of them were Chinese men in their sixties who arrived in private helicopters. Each evening, we had to move from our yacht to the large yacht, where we had to dance and 'carouse' in front of them. There were a number of famous DJs who played on the deck, and it was pretty cool. The Chinese sat on the couches around us and watched us dancing.
"On the last day, the agent approached me and said that one of the businessmen had taken a shine to me. He asked if I wanted to do 'extra'. Initially I didn't want to, but the offer involved an extremely sizable sum of money, so eventually I agreed and went off to his room."
Elle tells of another incident, in which a Mexican businessman invited her to come to Mexico in return for 30 thousand dollars. "I thought what can be so bad. I met him in a hotel penthouse. He brought be a white gown, demanded that I put it on and then left the room. I stood there in this strange white costume and I thought to myself, 'What the hell is going on here? I look like the Virgin Mary.' And then he called me to enter the other room. When I entered the room, to my amazement I saw blood daubed on the floor and some or other pagan symbol, something drawn with a star. That was a really weird experience. I felt as though I was in the middle of a sacrificial ritual. I refused to draw any nearer to him, and simply looked at him and wondered how my life had gone to pieces."
However bizarre these stories might appear to be, they are the daily reality for many models in the image trips industry. These girls find themselves having to contend with such dubious behavior that is backed up by big money. The global law enforcement authorities, on the whole, do not tend to play any active role in trying to oversee or look into this phenomenon. At best, they are simply unaware of these events, and at worst – they prefer to turn a blind eye to them. "On one occasion I did actually file a complaint with Europol (the establishment responsible for law enforcement across the EU member states, Y.E), after a wealthy client hit me," explains Elle. "When the client became aware of this, he threatened me and sent me a message stating 'I know where your mother lives.'" Elle claims that no action was taken in relation to the complaint that she filed.
Israeli fashion photographer, Adi Barkan, who has worked in the world of modeling for years, has been exposed on a number of occasions to various types of wrongdoing that occur there. "I was a fashion photographer in Paris, and there was an agency owner who came every Thursday to select girls whom he would then fly to Nice, for celebrations with his millionaire friends," he recounts during a conversation with Israel Hayom, confirming that the phenomenon of image trips does exist. "It does happen, for sure. Those billionaires keep the modeling agencies afloat. There are vast amounts of money there, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of euros. Young women and girls come to the agencies in Paris from all over the world, and they lose their heads.
"You don't have to be a real genius to get them to do it. You only need to be a small-scale manipulator who says, 'I can hook you up with clients, and one of them can get you made for life.' And then you see a 15-year-old girl attending parties with men aged 60 and 70 – and that is absolutely shocking."
Barkan, who later on established the NPO called Simply You, which fights against eating disorders in the fashion world, describes a world in which everybody is aware of this phenomenon. "To put it mildly, there is no bigger brothel than the fashion world. It is a glamorous and 'sparkling' world in which everybody wants to get ahead, and they lose their head without anybody seeing or hearing. Some of the stories circulating there will make your hair stand on end."
Is there nobody to look after those girls who can take care of them?
"Nobody. They are completely alone. Their mothers talk to them maybe once a week by phone, 'Is everything alright?', 'Yes, everything is fine,' and for the most part that is it."
Letting the wolf out of the cage
The temptation of large sums of money, alongside the dream of getting to know highly influential men, draw in many young girls like a magnet, causing them to face situations that they eventually come out of both physically and mentally scarred.
"On one of my first image trips, when I was still extremely naive, one female agent proposed that I should fly to Madrid to meet an important businessman," Elle recounts and stops to take a deep breath. "She sent me his photo and he looked to be a very young and handsome man, but when I arrived I understood that this was a photo from 20 years ago.
"I didn't want to stay with him. I tried to go, but he raped me violently. When everything was over and I left, I phoned the agent up in tears. I shouted at her, 'Listen, your client has just raped me.' In response she said to me: 'I am sorry, but this is something that can happen. Just make sure that you receive the money from him.'"
Elle: "The businessman called me, and when I entered the room, I saw a sort of pagan symbol on the floor, something with a star. That was a really weird experience. I felt as though I was in the middle of a sacrificial ritual. I refused to draw any nearer to him, and simply looked and wondered how my life had gone to pieces."
Despite the trauma, Elle explains that even after the rape she continued to go on additional trips. "I just don't know why I decided to remain in the game. Perhaps I felt that in any event I had been raped, so what is the worst thing that could happen to me now."
Looking back, how do you explain the fact that you continued taking part in the trips, despite the harrowing ordeal you endured in Madrid?
"It is interesting how the human brain can cause so much self-destruction, over and over again. I think that this was a combination of extremely bad friends, a poisonous environment and the use of a considerable volume of bad drugs."
Bewildered and disoriented from drugs, as she attempted to recover from the rape she had undergone, Elle went from bad to worse. Between trips, with her professional life in meltdown, she entered into a relationship with a partner who then financially abused her.
"He asked me to invest all my money, 100 thousand euros, in a large crypto deal. That was all my savings. He promised that I would make a huge profit from it and I wanted to buy a house for my mother, to make her happy. I handed over all my money to him – and he simply stole it. Everything vanished. And then he hit me, and it transpired that he had also cheated the landlord with regard to the rent for the apartment in which we were living. I just wanted to curl up in the corner and die. I saw a box of sleeping pills and swallowed them all." Elle stops for a moment and shows photos in which she appears injured and bruised, blood on her face and sad, listless eyes. According to Elle, after her failed suicide attempt she left her abusive partner and returned to her childhood home in the Netherlands, where she tried to put the pieces of her life back together.
It is difficult to avoid noticing the incurable optimism in you today, despite all that you have gone through.
"It is important for me to point out that not all the people taking part in the trips were bad, and that I also took part in some fun and entertaining trips. There was, for example, one ball in the luxurious palace of a king, to which I was invited along with other models. On the third night of the ball, the king's son – a rather comely young prince – took us to see the royal zoo. After the tour finished, I returned to the zoo, drunk, with another girl, and there we saw a white wolf wandering around in the cage, extremely sad. We decided to release it and simply opened the gate to the cage. This immediately set off an alarm and dozens of servants arrived from the palace. I have no idea what happened to the wolf, but we both got into trouble. They sent my friend home but the prince was very fond of me – so he decided that I should remain."
Everybody turns a blind eye
Elle once again adopts a more serious tone as she talks about the less amusing implications of these trips, and the potential damage they can cause to the young girls. Suddenly, she looks at her mobile phone and says: "Can you believe it, right now while I am talking to you I have just received a message from an agent from whom I haven't heard in more than two years. He asks if I am available in the near future."
Available for what?
"I don't know, apparently for a trip with someone. I will text him that I am no longer available – not now nor ever."
Elle is currently dreaming of opening up a private school for yoga, after she has finished her yoga instructor's course in India. "When I did the course there I was in shock. The people were so kind, courteous and normal. I wondered to myself, wow, so there are people who simply do not want to rape me or steal my money."
Why is it so important for you to tell your personal story here?
"Because such things happen on a daily basis. Young girls are sent to various locations around the world – and everybody is turning a blind eye to this. As though nobody knows about it but it is happening all around us all the time. I think that many girls are afraid to speak out, so this is a topic that is less known to the broader general public. They are very scared and ashamed. I want to break that barrier, and I hope that the fact that I have chosen to speak out might potentially save lives."
