A British model recalled how she was kidnapped to be sold on the dark web, revealing how she ended up surviving. In a new BBC documentary series called Chloe Ayling: My Unbelievable Kidnapping, Ayling detailed how she made it out alive from nearly being trafficked and possibly killed.
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Model Kidnapped To Be Auctioned On The Dark Web
It all began when Ayling went to Paris, France, in 2017, to partake in a photoshoot, as Unilad reported. She was 19 at the time, and someone named Andre Lazio hired her. The photoshoots ended up being cancelled after the terror attack at Champs-Élysées boulevard that left three police officers dead.
Months later, Lazio approached Ayling’s former agent, Phil Green, to book her for the same shoot. This time, it would be in Milan, Italy. Upon arriving at the supposed location of the photoshoot, Ayling was instead drugged and abducted.
Her captor, who referred to himself as MD, held her hostage for several days. MD’s job was to auction off Ayling as a sex slave on the dark web. They claimed that an organization called ‘The Black Death’ hired him to kidnap the model.
He informed her agent about this and attempted to blackmail him. MD asked for $300,000 if Green wanted MD to return Ayling safe and sound.
It didn’t take long for the agent to tell the police about the kidnapping. The auction was just a day away, and they were still trying to figure out what to do.
So, how did she get out of this situation alive? Well, Ayling remembered how her “calm” demeanor throughout the kidnapping may have helped her.
“I always remained calm,” said Ayling in the documentary. “With anything that happens, it’s like, so this has happened and what can I do about this? If the answer is nothing and it’s out of my control then I have to just accept it.”
How The Captive Managed To Escape
Ayling began to realize that not panicking and acting calm changed MD’s behavior. “In that moment, I knew I needed to rely on myself, and that was when I got the first ever inkling that he liked me in any way.”
Her captor eventually even tried to kiss her. “I had no clue before. I thought maybe he liked me as a person because I was not throwing a fit, but this was the first time I thought ‘wow, things have changed.'”
Although Ayling wanted to keep up her act, she couldn’t let herself kiss him back. “I just said, ‘I don’t really feel up for that right now. I’m not in the right mind set,'” she remembered.
Planting thoughts in MD’s mind that there could be a budding relationship with them outside of the kidnapping was working. This went on for six days until she finally convinced MD to release her.
The captor, later identified as Łukasz Herba, brought Ayling on July 17 to the Milan consulate. Ayling was finally free, and she told the authorities everything she went through. This was despite one of her release terms being to end any investigations into her kidnapping.
Due to Ayling’s social media influence, many netizens believed she lied about the incident for publicity. Suspicions dissolved once police charged Herba in June 2018 with kidnapping. They sentenced him to 16 years and nine months in prison.