LONDON (AP) — A British model who says she was lured to Milan and kidnapped by a man who allegedly threatened to auction her online is back in Britain and speaking to police, her agent said Monday.
Phil Green of Supermodel Agency said 20-year-old Chloe Ayling was undergoing “debriefing” with government officials and the police. Green asked the media to “respect the fact she does need some time alone.”
Milan police said Ayling, whose work includes topless shoots for British tabloids, was abducted on July 11, then “drugged, handcuffed and closed inside a suitcase … to be sold to the best offer on pornography sites.”
Police said in a statement that Ayling went to Milan for a photo shoot that a photographer had scheduled through her agent.
When she showed up for the appointment, she was attacked, put in a suitcase, placed in the trunk of a car and driven to a rural house near Turin in northern Italy. In the house, “the model was kept handcuffed to a wooden dresser in a bedroom.”
A suspect in Ayling’s abduction, Lukasz Pawel Herba, a Polish citizen living in Britain, was arrested on July 18, the day after he allegedly released her and dropped her off at the British consulate in Milan, police said.
Police said they think Herba, 30, advertised the “sale” of the woman online, while at the same time demanding $300,000 ransom from her agent.
Authorities said as far as they know, no ransom was paid.
Britain’s National Crime Agency said British police are working with Italian authorities and searched a house in central England linked to Herba.
Ayling told reporters on the doorstep of her home in south London, “I’ve been through a terrifying experience. I’ve feared for my life, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour.”
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