British model paints strange tale of abduction

LONDON — Chloe Ayling’s ordeal sounds like a tale spawned by nightmares of the evil that lurks online.

The 20-year-old British model says she was lured to Italy with the promise of a photo shoot, then drugged, stuffed into a suitcase, transported to an isolated farmhouse and held, at times in handcuffs, for almost a week.

Ayling has told police the “terrifying experience” ended when her captor, who had threatened to hold her for ransom or advertise her as a sex slave on the criminal “dark web,” decided instead to drop her off at the British consulate in Milan.

As made-for-the movies as the young woman’s account sounds, Italian police have arrested a suspect: a 30-year-old Polish man who claimed to be a paid killer for a group called the Black Death.

The lawyer Ayling has while the case is under investigation — standard procedure in Italy — acknowledged Monday that aspects of the case seem bizarre.

“It seems incredible,” lawyer Francesco Pesce said — “a man kidnaps, together with others, a girl, and after a week, citing particular reasons, accompanies her inside a consulate ... (and) practically hands her over to police.”

“But the story later turned out to be true,” he added.

Pesce, Ayling’s agent, and Milan police have all given broadly the same account of the sensational events.

The model went to Milan on July 11 for a photo shoot at what her agent, Phil Green, said was “a recognized studio in the city center.”

When she got there, her lawyer said, a man grabbed her by the neck while another injected her with a dose of the anesthetic Ketamine “strong enough to knock her to the ground.”

Milan police said Ayling was taken to a rural house near Turin in northern Italy, where she was kept handcuffed to a wooden dresser.

Though the suspect in custody, Lukasz Pawel Herba, advertised her “sale” online while demanding $300,000 ransom from her agent, authorities said, Ayling was dropped off at the British consulate on July 17.