Maria Sazonova, 21, went missing with a student friend after telling her mother she had got a bar job to earn money for a new iPhone. The Russian foreign ministry organised a search for the pair after they failed to contact their families for a week amid concern over young women being exploited by sex traffickers in the region.
Russian embassy officials confirmed that Maria and friend Viktoria Matveyeva, 20, were found in Jordan, and after being detained, were deported late on Monday from the kingdom.
Friends have now confirmed the pair - known as Masha and Vika - are "alive and well" after being detained working as escorts in Jordan.
Dzhennet Mimun, director of Moscow-based Creepy Sweets model agency, for which Maria has worked, said: "She was arrested for providing escort services.
She believed the two women were fooled into becoming "sex slaves", possibly by a wealthy Bahrainian man Maria earlier described as her "fiance". A Bahrainian man identified by a Moscow newspaper as being in touch with Maria - named as Hamza Z - denied knowing the two women. He told Komsomolskaya Pravda : "There are many Russian girls among my friends. I don't remember such girls. They were earlier detained for "illegal labour activities", said press secretary Taras Dobrovolsky. Russian ambassador to Bahrain, Vagif Garaev, said of Maria: "We are investigating the circumstances around the missing Russian girl.
