20-year-old model Chloe Ayling was released unharmed after six days of being tied to a wardrobe and threatened by sex traffickers.
Chloe Ayling/InstagramChloe Ayling was only 20 years old when she was kidnapped for ransom.
Chloe Ayling is a British model, but that is not the only thing she is known for.
Over eight years ago, a then 20-year-old Ayling was reportedly abducted during a work trip to Milan, Italy. She was held captive for six days before escaping without major injuries. Ayling claimed that she was kidnapped to be sold during a dark web auction.
While her abduction made major headlines, there were people who doubted her story, believing it to be some kind of elaborate publicity stunt for her modeling career. These doubts have never really gone away, even though a man was tried and convicted for the kidnapping one year later.
Chloe Ayling Was Kidnapped After Arriving To An Abandoned Building For A Gig In Milan
In 2017, Chloe Ayling was headed to Milan for a modeling gig. At the time, Ayling was most well-known for her Instagram pictures and modeling work. However, what happened in Milan would forever change the trajectory of her career and public opinion.
Unfortunately, there was no photoshoot. Ayling showed up to the location on July 12th, only to be drugged and abducted by two men, one of whom was Lukasz Herba, the man who she thought was going to conduct the photoshoot.
YouTubeThe house where Chloe Ayling was reportedly kept.
The men then took Ayling to a remote farmhouse, where she was kept for six days. During that time, Ayling’s mother contacted Ayling’s agent because she hadn’t returned to the United Kingdom.
Ayling’s agent later received an email from Herba, demanding to be paid $300,000 in ransom, or else Ayling would be sold on the dark web in just a few days on July 16th. Ayling’s agent contacted the police in Milan, who visited the location where the model had disappeared from.
While they did not find Ayling at the location, they discovered the location that the model had been sent to for the gig wasn’t even a photo studio. Instead, it was an abandoned building where all they found were some of Ayling’s clothes. Without finding additional information, the investigation stalled.
But, as luck would have it, Ayling and Herba, one of her captors, showed up to the British Consulate in Milan. Ayling had been released by her kidnappers, and with no major injuries.
Chloe Ayling’s Method For Escape Made Her A Target For Scrutiny
Sergio Foffo/Polizia di StatoA police reconstruction of how Chloe Ayling was kidnapped.
On that fateful day in 2017 when Chloe Ayling disappeared, she was supposed to meet up with an Italian photographer named Andre Lazio. The thing was, Andre Lazio didn’t really exist.
Lazio was actually Herba, a Polish man who had been living in Britain at the time. When Ayling arrived at the supposed photoshoot location, Herba and his brother Michael injected her with ketamine and then moved her to the secluded farmhouse.
Herba falsely claimed that he and his brother were part of a Romanian criminal gang known as The Black Death. This would later be revealed to be false during the course of the investigation after Ayling’s release.
So, why did Ayling’s captors let her go? According to the model, she realized that Herba seemed to like her, or was at least infatuated with her. She began to play into his weak spot for her, realizing that this may be the only way to save her life. She even shared a bed with him and promised that she might be his girlfriend one day.
However, it was this exact act of deception that would make people doubtful of Ayling’s story. When footage of Herba and Ayling holding hands was released, The Times, a British tabloid, claimed “this wasn’t victim behaviour.”
Polizia di StatoHerba was convicted of kidnapping in 2018.
This scrutiny wouldn’t be helped by Herba’s trial, where his defense team claimed that he had fallen in love with Chloe Ayling and had arranged the kidnapping to increase her notoriety. The British press latched on to the theory, continuing to question the legitimacy of her experience and story.
Piers Morgan, an infamous British news-anchor, would go one to interview her on Good Morning Britain just months after she returned home, questioning her on her supposed “cashing in” on her experience for fame, having just signed a book deal.
Herba’s trial concluded on June 11, 2018, when he was convicted of kidnapping. He was sentenced to 16 years and nine months in prison, but that didn’t give Ayling any relief from the questions of her story’s legitimacy.
“I wanted to be positive and move on, but it still goes on,” Ayling said. “I was never praised for my bravery getting out of the situation. Instead, I always have to defend myself.”
Herba’s brother Michael initially denied any involvement in the scheme. However, he would later be charged and convicted of kidnapping in 2019 after forensic evidence revealed some of his hair in the car used to transport Ayling from Milan to the farmhouse. He was sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison.
Years After The Kidnapping, Chloe Ayling Is Still Trying To Tell Her Story
Corriere della SeraSome people believed Ayling looked too calm during her interview with RAI while recalling the kidnapping.
In the eight years since Chloe Ayling’s kidnapping and subsequent scrutiny, both her and her agent have written books about the ordeal. Ayling also spent a season on Celebrity Big Brother, which continued to fuel backlash against her.
The Times has since rolled back some of their criticism of Ayling and her story, stating that it is now clear to see the “misogyny and classism” in their coverage. Ayling has also since claimed that if she weren’t a model and instead a schoolteacher, she may have been believed.
In 2024, a six-part series was released by the BBC, recounting the story of Ayling’s kidnapping and the media backlash that followed her release.
“This should be a lesson for people not to judge victims based on the way they act or react,” Ayling told the BBC in 2024. “I want the world to know that what I’m saying is true.”
A three-part documentary released this year on Chloe Ayling’s experience revealed she was diagnosed with autism, which she believes is part of the reason people didn’t believe her story.
“Autism plays a big part in the way that I reacted, and that was confusing to neurotypical people,” Ayling explained. “People disassociate with events that have happened or have a delayed reaction, especially after trauma. So, it can’t all be put down to a diagnosis, and that shouldn’t affect the way people treated me.”
In 2020, Herba was able to get his sentence lessened to 12 years and one month. His brother’s sentence was also reduced after an appeal, resulting in a new prison time of five years and eight months and has since been released.
“I think he should have been in prison for a lot longer,” Ayling told the BBC about Michael Herba’s release. “The fact that they still don’t take accountability and still want to make lies and not be responsible for what they did (is) even more annoying.”
Next, read about the French fitness model who was killed by an exploding whipped cream can. Then, learn the tragic fate of Audrey Munson, America’s first supermodel, who died in a mental asylum.
