The two women pretended they were held against their will in the pub in Stirling
Two teenagers tied up the whole of Central Scotland's CID team for an entire shift by falsely claiming they had been abducted, a court heard.
Alice Nicol and Cathryn Spencer sparked the police operation after pretending they were being held against their will in a Stirling pub.
However, the pair had been given refuge in the pub by a barman who thought they were too drunk to be on the street and there was a shortage of taxis.
They will be sentenced on 21 December.
Stirling Sheriff Court was told the barman and his friend were arrested and Claymores bar was forensically searched after the false allegations were made.
The court was told Nicol and Spencer were seen on CCTV "laughing and joking" outside the closed pub with the two men.
They were then seen entering the pub with the men and another woman, who left before the false allegation was made.
Depute fiscal Laura Knox said it was a matter of agreement between the prosecution and defence that "all five of them went into the pub willingly together" in the early hours of 27 December.
Wasting police time
The court was told Spencer called police at 06:00 from the ladies' toilets and claimed she and Nicol had been deliberately locked in the bathroom.
Police raced to the scene and led Nicol and Spencer out of the building and arrested the two men.
However, CCTV showed Nicol leaving the pub freely six minutes before Spencer called police, chatting to the driver of a car in the street, and going back into the bar.
Nicol, 20 of Doune, Perthshire, was found guilty after trial of wasting police time.
Spencer, 19, of Glenochil, Clackmannanshire, admitted the offence.
Sheriff William Gilchrist, said both women gave "very precise, incredibly detailed blow-by-blow" false accounts.
'False allegations'
The sheriff said that, according to a statement of agreed evidence, "the entire Criminal Investigation Department of the Forth Valley Division of Police Scotland was involved in the investigation of the allegations for their entire shift".
The inquiry involved four uniformed officers, six detective constables, one detective sergeant, scenes of crime officers and two officers from the custody unit.
Sheriff Gilchrist said: "It was a huge waste of police resources, quite apart from the impact on those who were the object of the false allegations."
