The owners and two employees of GirlsDoPorn face sex-trafficking charges in what federal investigators call a “scheme to deceive and coerce young women to appear in sex videos”. Picture: Pexels

They wanted to be models. Mostly struggling college students, the young women submitted applications through websites such as BeginModeling.com – which promised a “comfortable start” in the industry – only to learn that the modeling job was a pornography shoot.

They agreed to participate anyway, federal authorities claim in court documents, because of a promise that the videos were being created exclusively for private collectors or DVDs sold abroad and would never be posted online.

That turned out to be a lie, the FBI says. The footage was uploaded within months to a website called GirlsDoPorn, which has allegedly made $17 million by specializing in “amateur porn” starring nervous first-timers. They also appeared on Porn Hub, one of the world’s leading adult video sites. The women say they were horrified to find out their shoots were online; many were harassed or ostracized as a result. At least one was disowned by her family, according to the FBI.