20-year-old British model Chloe Ayling thought she was flying to Milan for a photoshoot. Instead, she was allegedly drugged, stuffed into a bag and kept for six days, while her kidnappers tried to auction her as a sex slave on the dark web.
UPDATE: Now, details have emerged about Chloe’s alleged captor. Italian police have described Lukasz Pawel Herba, the man accused of kidnapping British model, as a ‘fantasist’.
As The Guardian reports, Herba was arrested and charged over the alleged kidnapping after he took the model to the British consulate in Milan.
It is alleged Chloe’s captor allegedly planned to sell her on the dark web for £230,000, and also made demands that her agent pay a ransom fee.
Local media described Herba as a “dangerous person with traces of mythomania”. The Polish national lives in the West Midlands in England.
“Fantasist or not, what is clear is that he is a very dangerous man who drugged his victim as soon as she was kidnapped and put her inside a large travel bag in the boot of a car,” Milan deputy prosecutor Paolo Storari said, news.com.au reports.
Details about a shopping trip Chloe’s kidnappers took her on have also emerged.
Her lawyer, Francesco Pesce, said Chloe was of the belief she would be harmed if she tried to run during the trip.
“Chloe told me that she was very scared and wanted to do everything she could to go along with everything in order to make [her captor] release her,” he said. “It’s understandable, she was scared. I believe she was being brave, she was with a captor and didn’t know what to do. She stayed calm. And now she is safe and with her family.”
ORIGINAL:
Chloe described the harrowing ordeal of her alleged kidnapping in a police statement, obtained by The Daily Mail.
“A person wearing black gloves came from behind and put one hand on my neck and one on my mouth to stop me from screaming,” she recounted.
“A second person wearing a black balaclava gave me an injection in my right forearm. I think I lost consciousness. When I woke up I was wearing a pink bodysuit and the socks I am wearing now,” she continued.
“I realised I was in the boot of a car with my wrists and ankles handcuffed, adhesive tape on my mouth. I was inside a bag and was only able to breathe through a small hole.”
Chloe said she was driven for three-hours to a house, where she was taken inside and handcuffed to a set of drawers.
It was then that she was told she would be auctioned off on the dark web on ‘Black Death’ – a site associated with people trafficking and kidnapping.
However, Chloe said that, thankfully, once her kidnappers found out she was a mother to a two-year-old boy, they started to get cold feet.
“The boss had seen my Instagram profile which clearly showed that I was a mum with a young boy and this went against the rules of the organisation,” she told police.
Eventually, one of the men dropped her at the British Consulate in Milan. He was quickly arrested, and, after a four-week-long nightmare, Chloe is finally back in the U.K. and reunited with her family.
“I’ve been through a terrifying experience. I’ve feared for my life, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour,” she told The Sun. “I’m incredibly grateful to the Italian and UK authorities for all they have done to secure my safe release.”
Police are now working to find the other men involved with Chloe’s kidnapping.
