Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably heard the story dominating UK news of the young British glamour model who was kidnapped in Italy and was allegedly going to be sold online for sex.
Chloe Ayling, 20, has claimed that she was lured online by people who claimed they wanted her for a photoshoot, but when she got to Milan she was drugged and put in the boot of a car, and taken to a village in Turin.
One of the kidnappers who has been arrested, Lukasz Herba, freed Chloe on Sunday after holding her captive for six days, and despite his ransom not being paid.
Lukasz is part of a gang who call themselves Black Death who, according to Italian police, drugged Chloe with ketamine and abducted her.
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It is alleged that the kidnappers attempted to sell the model online for £230,000, and it has been reported that they demanded £50,000 upon Chloe’s release.
Chloe’s lawyer Francesco Pesce told the Today show on Radio 4: “She was told that people were there watching her and ready to kill her if she tried anything.
“So she thought that the best idea was to go along with it and to be nice in a way to her captor because he told her that he wanted to release her somehow and sometime and she thought that the best thing to do was not to go in conflict with him.
“So she abided to his request, ‘let’s go and buy groceries’ and ‘you need shoes, let’s go buy shoes’ and she didn’t try to flee.
“But I believe she was terrified at the moment and even if she could’ve asked for help she didn’t because she was subjugated to this person, or people as she was given to understand.”
Chloe’s friend Carla Bellucci spoke about the young model’s ordeal on today’s This Morning.
Carla said of Chloe: “She is very strong about it all, I don’t know if that’s her way of handling it.”
When she heard the news about her friend being kidnapped she said: “I was emotional. I’d followed the story previously not realising it was Chloe, opened the paper, saw it was her, ran to my phone and when I heard her voice it was just emotion and tears from my side.”
She told presenters Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford: “She’s a beautiful girl, she’s lovely, she is just a little naive.
“Like everybody who goes into this industry, they want to be famous, I think she was willing to go all the way. She wants to be known.”
When Eamonn asked her if she doubts Chloe’s story in any way, Carla said: “That’s so hard, I’ve only spoken to Chloe briefly. That is such a hard one.”
She expressed some confusion at why the glamour model was released so easily. She looked a little perplexed as she said: “Knowing that she’s a Page 3 girl and she’s gonna go to the press, this gang released her.”
Lukasz Herba reportedly drove Chloe to the British Embassy to let her go, and we now know that Chloe is set to do a Page 3 photoshoot today, but that’s not something that Carla has organised.
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She said: “That’s what I would like to know, who’s behind this.
“For me as an agent, I would never send her out to do a Page 3 shoot after being released from an ordeal like this. That would be the last thing on my mind.”
When Ruth asked Carla what she thought about the fact that whoever was managing Chloe allowed her to go to Italy on her own to meet people she didn’t know, Carla said: “I think it’s disgusting and whoever’s been behind her and done that plays a big part in this.”
Chloe gave a statement to the press after her release saying: “I’ve been through a terrifying experience, I feared for my life second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour.
“I am incredibly grateful to the Italian and the UK authorities for all they have done to secure my safe release.
“I have just arrived home after four weeks of being in Italy and I haven’t had the time to gather my thoughts. I’m not at liberty to say anything further until I have been debriefed by the UK police.”