When news broke in August 2017 that a British model had flown to Milan for what she thought was a photoshoot, only to be drugged, stuffed into a bag and held captive for six days before she was ultimately released, people thought it was a hoax.
Chloe Ayling claimed her kidnappers planned to sell her as a sex slave on the dark web, but miraculously, changed their minds and released her in front of Milan’s British consulate when they found out she had a child.
Now one of her captors, Polish national Lucasz Herba, has been found guilty of kidnapping Ayling and jailed for 16 years and nine months, the BBC reports.
Despite Herba’s claims that Ayling was involved and the kidnapping was an elaborate publicity stunt, the court ruled out any involvement on her part.
“She wrote [the ransom notes] with me,” Herba said through an interpreter, The Sun reports. “My English isn’t too good. She collaborated. She knew that when all the scandal was over she would earn a lot of money and publicity.”
As The Guardian reports, 30-year-old Herba has been described by Italian police as a ‘fantasist’.
“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.
In court, Herba revealed he was inspired by the film By Any Means, which features a similar kidnapping.
The BBC reports that Herba’s brother Michal is alleged to have been involved in Ayling’s kidnapping, and is currently being extradited from the UK.
