16 troubling questions about the Black Death case after witnesses claim ‘kidnap’ girl Chloe Ayling and captor ‘looked like a couple’
QUESTIONS were mounting last night over the alleged kidnap of a British glamour girl by sex slavers.
Witnesses who saw model Chloe Ayling with suspected abductor Lukasz Herba said they thought they were a couple.
One even claimed he had seen the pair laughing and joking together while visiting a cafe in Milan, Italy.
Chloe’s lawyer confirmed she went shopping for groceries and shoes with Polish-born Herba a day before she turned up at the British consulate, saying she’d been kidnapped.
Meanwhile photos emerged of the model lying on a floor with one breast exposed.
It is thought they were taken while in captivity and were to be used to “auction” her by crime syndicate Black Death.
Chloe, 20, was seen yesterday on a motorbike speeding away from her home in Coulsdon, South London — as celebrity agents acting for her were busily trying to sell her story to the highest bidder.
And it also emerged that the model’s infant son lives with her ex.
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Chloe has told how she was snatched, drugged and taken to a remote farmhouse after arriving in Milan for a fake photoshoot.
She said she was held for a week before being set free.
Herba, 30 — living in Oldbury, West Midlands — faced court in Milan last week.
Yesterday a waiter at the city’s Farina Cucina cafe told how he saw Chloe with Herba before they walked into the British consulate.
He said: “She seemed happy and relaxed, they stayed for about two hours.
"They were laughing and joking.”
16 Questions about abduction of glamour model Chloe after she was seen joking with captor
1. How well did Chloe and Herba know each other?
A PAL of Chloe’s said she met Polish-born Herba at a Paris photoshoot in April months before the kidnap.
Another source said they “may have been seen together on other occasions.”
Chloe paints a picture of Herba, who has been arrested on suspicion of her kidnapping, as a kindly captor.
She said he removed duct tape from her mouth and took off her cuffs when he arrived at a property near the French border.
She added that Herba, who lives in Oldbury, West Mids, was furious the group snatched a mother and told her he paid most of her ransom.
2. Why did she go to the fake photoshoot?
A PHOTOGRAPHER — who may have been Herba — requested Chloe through her agent, Phil Green.
The photoshoot was at a “recognised studio in the city centre” in Milan on July 11 and was paid for in advance.
Phil, who runs Supermodel Agency, said: “We ask lots of questions of new clients.
“Who are you, what do you want the shoot for, what is Chloe required to do, have you got a website and examples of your previous work?
“There was nothing we thought suspicious at all.
“Chloe had spoken to the photographer on the phone, too.”
When she arrived, a man allegedly grabbed her by the neck while another injected ketamine into her arm.
Hair was found in the boot of the car, traces of ketamine in her blood and a syringe mark on her arm.
3. What really happened during the six-day ordeal?
CHLOE said she was terrified “second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour”.
She also claimed she feared being killed if she tried to escape.
Yet, she went shoe shopping with Herba, who also fed her chocolate.
Chloe said they had developed a trusting relationship. He allowed her to shower and gave her fresh underwear and T-shirts to wear each day.
4. How many kidnappers were there?
CHLOE says there were five but reports from Italian police suggest there were just two.
It is thought the authorities want to talk to Herba’s brother, 36-year-old Mikal, as a witness.
5. Why no bruises when she spoke to the media?
CHLOE said she was stuffed into a bag, driven in the boot of a car for two hours to near the French border, then handcuffed to a chest of drawers. Four weeks later, any visible evidence of her ordeal had disappeared.
6. Why didn't she escape when she had the chance?
CHLOE said: “I never went outside because he prohibited it.”
Yet her lawyer said Chloe was allowed to leave the farmhouse to buy new shoes with her captor.
Francesco Pesce said she thought it best to go along with his ideas.
He said: “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.”
7. Why did she and Herba sleep in the same bed and did they have sex?
FROM the second night on, she slept with Herba in a double bed but insists he didn’t molest her.
She told police: “Black Death prohibited or severely punished members who touched kidnapped girls.”
Chloe has suggested Herba stared at her in the shower.
8. Was Lukasz Herba just a scam-obsessed fantasist?
HERBA claims he was forced into the plot by Romanians.
He also claimed to have £14million in the bank, yet he lived in a rented council flat with his brother.
Herba told an acquaintance of an outlandish scam to steal from American billionaires.
Deputy prosecutor Paolo Storati said he was “a person affected by mythomania” — an abnormal or pathological tendency to exaggerate or tell lies.
And his girlfriend, Natalia, described him as a narcissist who claimed he ran an international business making synthetic chicken feed, that he had land in Scotland and owned a sniper rifle.
During the kidnap, he continued to text Natalia, pretending he was in Texas on business.
He had a business card with a picture of the Grim Reaper and the words “Permanent solution”.
Mr Storati said: “He presented himself as a professional killer.”
9. Why did Herba try to sell the story to a newspaper?
HERBA emailed at least two papers to sell the story.
His email was headed: “British model kidnapped by the Russian mafia.”
He later confessed he’d lied about the mafia to “attract attention”.
10. Does the Black Death group exist?
IT is said to be a shadowy network, started in Eastern Europe and responsible for kidnapping and extortion.
The group allegedly posted naked pictures of Chloe on the dark web, intending to sell her as a sex slave. But when they realised she was a mum, they demanded a £270,000 ransom instead.
Chloe’s kidnapping is the only known crime associated with the group.
11. Why did Herba take Chloe to the consulate instead of dumping her?
INSTEAD of releasing Chloe, Herba decided to take her to the British Consulate in Milan, all but guaranteeing that he would be arrested.
He is currently being held in prison in Milan. One friend said: “Why didn’t he just leave her outside?”
12. Why did she stay in Italy for so long after release?
SHE was released on July 16, yet the Italian police took her passport and refused to let her return before she gave evidence at an August 4 hearing.
13. Does her behaviour at home seem incongruous for a trauma victim?
ON Sunday, Chloe spoke to the media, wearing just a tiny pair of hotpants and a cleavage-revealing vest top, while beaming at the cameras.
She has also ditched her former agent for a celebrity agent.
Yesterday, she leapt on the back of a motorbike as she headed to a topless photoshoot, something even her close friend, Carla Bellucci, below, admitted would be “the last thing on my mind”.
Carla, also a model, added: “She has her reasons, and maybe it’s her way of dealing with what’s happened to her, to get back out there.
“Maybe it’s her way of coping.”
14. Why hasn't she seen her 18-month-old son yet?
CHLOE’S former partner Conor Keyes claims she has not seen her son, Ashton, since returning to the UK.
He claims he has cared for him for the past year to let Chloe pursue her career.
She has also said Ashton is two but his birthday isn’t until November.
15. Why were they seen laughing and joking at cafe?
HERBA took Chloe for breakfast in central Milan at 7am on July 17 before the British Consulate next door opened.
A waiter said: “They were laughing and joking amongst themselves.”
A shopkeeper from whom they bought groceries three or four times also said he thought they were a couple.
16. Why aren't Chloe's friends & family leaping to her defence?
WHEN asked about the kidnapping, Chloe’s mum, who must have been distraught at her daughter’s ordeal, would say only: “You need to ask Chloe.”
Her friend Carla, who was asked on the Victoria Derbyshire programme whether something fishy was going on, called Chloe “naive.”
And her son’s father Conor said: “If that happened to me I would not be all smiley.
“I would not want to be talking to people. But that’s just the kind of person she is. She loves the camera.”
But former agent Phil Green, who called police when he received a ransom demand the day after she was snatched, insisted the story was true.
He said: “She went to the studio wearing very little make-up and there was a picture taken of her when she was unconscious and put on the dark web, which she would never ever have agreed to.
She doesn’t like pictures taken at all without make-up or being re-touched.”
Phil also said Chloe had a flight booked and paid for with her own money for a shoot in Ibiza the day after the kidnapping.