My ordeal, by kidnapped British model
Model tells of ordeal with kidnap gang who wanted to sell her for sex
A BRITISH model spoke yesterday of her terrifying kidnap ordeal at the hands of a gang who threatened to auction her for sex online.
Chloe Ayling was lured to a fake photoshoot in Milan where she was drugged, stripped and handcuffed before being bundled into a suitcase in the boot of a car.
Driven to a remote farmhouse, the 20-year-old was held hostage for six days while her captors demanded £270,000 for her safe return.
Back in the UK yesterday after she was freed by the group, the mother of one said: ‘I’ve been through a terrifying experience. I’ve feared for my life, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour.’
Lukasz Herba, a Pole who lives in the West Midlands, has been arrested on suspicion of kidnap.
The 30-year-old, believed to be a senior figure in a shadowy online network called Black Death, alleg120 edly threatened to sell the Page 3 model for sex to the highest bidder on the so-called Dark Web if his demands were not met.
Miss Ayling flew to Milan on July 10 after her modelling agency was contacted by Herba, who pretended to be a photographer and asked her to go to an address in the city the next day. But when she arrived at a fake studio near the central station, she was attacked by kidnappers in balaclavas who injected her with the powerful horse tranquilliser ketamine, she said. While she was unconscious, they stripped her, handcuffed her wrists and ankles and put tape across her mouth.
The young mother was then stuffed into a suitcase and locked in the boot of a car, it is claimed, and driven miles to a remote farmhouse near Turin. Miss Ayling, who returned to her family home in Coulsdon, south London, yesterday after almost a month in Italy, said: ‘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.
‘A second person wearing a black balaclava gave me an injection in my right forearm.’
Her official statement said: ‘I think I lost consciousness. When I woke up I was wearing a pink bodysuit and the socks I am wearing now.
‘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.’ The model said the gang were forced to stop the hatchback every 45 minutes because of her ‘continuous moans and movements in the bag’.
On one occasion one of the masked men threw ‘fizzy water directly into my mouth’. In her statement, the model said there were at least five kidnappers, including Herba.
Investigators said the victim was kept shackled to a wooden chest of drawers at the farmhouse in Borgial, a hamlet near Turin.
She was forced to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag. Police said she was not raped. Herba is alleged to have told detectives he had sex with the victim but the circumstances of his claim remained unclear last night.
The Pole told the landlord of the rural property he was a painter in search of inspiration and that he had found the right spot.
After the alleged kidnap he is said to have threatened the modelling agency that if it did not pay up by July 16 he would put the victim up for ‘auction’ on the Dark Web, a hidden part of the internet that is only accessible with special software. The suspect is said to have posted semi-naked pictures of the model alongside her age, dress size and ethnicity. One of the disturbing images is of her dressed in a velvet body suit, looking dazed and lying on the floor with her left breast exposed. Her captors even placed a calling card on her stomach that described ‘delivery’ arrangements and that ‘collection can be arranged’. It is thought several requests were made to ‘buy’ the model.
The online network Black Death has been previously investigated by Europol. It refers to victims as ‘merchandise’ and boasts it can ‘kidnap a specific target for your needs’.
Herba reportedly decided to release the model after finding out
‘Just a small hole to breathe through ’ Shackled to a wooden chest
that she has a two-year-old son. According to Italian police, the rules of his gang apparently ban ‘kidnapping mothers’.
Describing more of her ordeal, Miss Ayling told police: ‘[Herba] tells me that his boss is furious as they have kidnapped the wrong person.
‘I should not have been taken because it is clear from my Instagram account that I am a mother of a small child and that’s against the rules of the organisation.
‘He said the imprisonment couldn’t stop as they had already published two pictures of me on the deep web, made when I was unconscious.
‘There were already some people who expressed their interest in me.
‘He told me he had made more than 15million euros in the last five years. He explained to me that all girls are sold to Arab countries. When the buyer is tired of a girl he either gives her to other people or feeds her to the tigers.’
Herba reportedly drove the model back to the British consulate in Milan on July 17 – a move which led
to his arrest. Before dropping her off he is said to have demanded £45,000 from her and ‘threatened to kill her’ if she told anyone about her ordeal. Detectives say Herba has confessed to the plot, which is said to have taken several months to plan. He appeared in a Milan court on Friday. Police investigator Serena Ferrari said: ‘The psychological pressure on the girl has been extreme.’
Detectives said Herba claims he is suffering from leukaemia and that the other members of the gang are Romanian. He is said to have told police that the others forced him to write the blackmail emails to Miss Ayling’s modelling agency. The model took police to the fake studio and the remote house where she was held before returning to Britain yesterday.
Her lawyer Francesco Pesce said: ‘She shed a tear, she was so brave.
‘It must have been terrifying to be alone in this house being locked up by strangers in the middle of nowhere. She was told she was going to be sold. It was scary.’
Speaking from the three-bedroom terraced home that she shares with her Polish mother Beata, Miss Ayling said it had been her first visit to Italy.
She said: ‘I’m incredibly grateful to the Italian and UK authorities for all they have done to secure my safe release.
‘I have just arrived home after four weeks and haven’t had time to collect my thoughts.
‘I am not at liberty to say anything further until I have been debriefed by the UK police.’
Italian police revealed that Herba allegedly tried to kidnap the same model in Paris in April, having organised a photoshoot at an address in the French capital, but the bid was apparently aborted.
During the same trip, Miss Ayling said she was in the ChampsElysees when a police officer was shot dead by a terrorist.