Model Chloe Ayling Was Lured to Italy and Held for Ransom for Days — Then Was Called a Liar. Inside Her Terrifying Abduction Story By Samantha Stutsman

When 20-year-old model Chloe Ayling boarded a flight to Milan in July 2017, she thought she was heading to a glamorous photo shoot that could boost her rising career.

Instead, she was drugged, stuffed into a duffel bag and driven to a remote farmhouse in northern Italy, where her captors threatened to auction her off online.

After six harrowing days, she was freed — yet her nightmare didn’t end there. As shocking details of the case emerged, Ayling faced a new battle: convincing a skeptical public that she had truly been kidnapped and wasn’t fabricating the ordeal for fame.

Ayling’s abduction is depicted in the six-part BBC series Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story, which premiered in 2024. AMC+ debuted the first two episodes on Aug. 28, 2025, and additional episodes will be released weekly.

“The media affected me more long-term than the actual kidnapping itself,” Ayling told This Morning in August 2024. “I got the closure from the kidnapping from the court, but I never got that closure from the media. People’s last memory is that it was a publicity stunt.”

She continued, “All these false headlines never got closure, and I believe this drama can help do that. People will learn a lot of things they didn’t know.”

Here’s everything to know about Chloe Ayling’s kidnapping, her kidnapper’s claims and where she is today.

Who is Chloe Ayling?

Chloe Ayling was born in 1997 and grew up in Coulsdon, a town in south London. At the time of her kidnapping, she was working as a model and raising her young son, whom she’d welcomed with her ex-partner, Conor Keyes, per the Daily Mail.

Ayling was signed to Phil Green’s Supermodel Agency and had begun landing international work, a promising step forward in her modeling career. But in 2017, while traveling to Milan for what she believed was a legitimate photo shoot, her life took a devastating and unexpected turn.

What happened to Chloe Ayling?

Ayling, then 20, was kidnapped on July 11, 2017.

She traveled to Milan for what she believed was a legitimate modeling photo shoot. When she arrived at the studio in Italy, she was attacked by two masked men. They drugged her with ketamine, handcuffed her wrists and ankles and placed tape over her mouth.

Ayling was shoved into a duffel bag and woke up while en route to a secluded farmhouse near Turin, roughly 90 miles away from Milan.

“There was a little hole for me to breathe. I’d been stripped of my clothes. I was just in my bodysuit and my socks,” she told Good Morning Britain in October 2017.

Ayling claimed she was targeted for trafficking by the illegal human trafficking organization “Black Death Group” and her captors planned to auction her off online unless she could come up with a ransom of $300,000. The model was held captive for several days and left the farmhouse once with her captors to visit a local hiking shop and grocery store — a detail Ayling would later omit from her police interview.

She was eventually dropped off at the British consulate by Lukasz Herba, a 30-year-old Polish national, who was arrested by police the next day.

How did Chloe Ayling escape?

Ayling didn’t escape on her own — she was released on day six. She told Good Morning Britain that Herba’s original plan was to drop her off 20 minutes away from the British consulate in Milan to avoid cameras.

When they arrived two hours before the consulate opened, the plan changed.

“He didn’t want to leave me on my own, so we went to the cafe next door [to the consulate],” Ayling explained. “I can see why people think it’s weird. In my eyes, he was the guy who saved me.”

Once the consulate opened, Ayling walked through the doors and told them she’d been kidnapped. Herba was by her side, posing as a “friend.”

Who kidnapped Chloe Ayling?

Ayling was kidnapped by Herba, a Polish man living in the U.K., who lured her to Milan under the pretense of a modeling photo shoot. His brother, Michal Herba, was also implicated in the crime and helped with logistics.

Herba admitted to being the sole kidnapper, with help from his brother, though claimed that he had fallen in love with Ayling and that the two had allegedly staged the kidnapping together to ease her financial struggles following the birth of her son.

“I never harmed her or acted violently,” Herba said in a court declaration, per 10 WBNS. “If she ever felt pressured by my words, I regret that — but it was nothing like the way Chloe has described.”

He added, “I was in love with her, and I believed that once her fame grew, she would return my feelings and we could share the money.”

Where is Lukasz Herba now?

Herba was arrested on July 18, 2017, the day after he released Ayling and dropped her off at the British consulate in Milan, according to NBC News. His brother, Michal, was arrested on Aug. 16, 2017, in the U.K. was later extradited to Italy.

In June 2018, Herba was convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to 16 years and nine months in prison. His sentence has since been reduced following an appeal, per the BBC.

As for Michal, he was sentenced to 16 years and eight months but had his sentence reduced to five years and eight months following an appeal. He was quietly released in 2022, according to the Daily Mail.

“I think he should have been in prison for a lot longer,” Ayling told the BBC of Michal in August 2024. “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.”

Is Chloe Ayling’s story true?

Ayling was the victim of a terrifying abduction plot that led to two convictions. However, from the very beginning, her story attracted widespread skepticism because of unusual details that some saw as “holes” or inconsistencies.

For example, reports noted that Ayling went shopping with her captors instead of being kept in total confinement, which struck critics as strange behavior for a kidnap victim. Others pointed to the fact that she did not attempt to escape, even when left unguarded at times.

Questions were also raised about her demeanor when she returned to the U.K. — she was seen calm and smiling, which many felt did not fit the image of a traumatized hostage.

“I was in Italy for three weeks before I came home to the U.K.. What people didn’t witness was me crying almost every day, me being too paranoid to leave my room [and] having nightmares,” she told This Morning in August 2017.

Finally, the kidnappers’ claim to be part of the so-called “Black Death Group” turned out to be fabricated, and the ransom demand was never enforced in a way that convinced skeptics.

Where is Chloe Ayling now?

According to her Instagram, Ayling continues to model and also runs an OnlyFans account. She published a memoir, Kidnapped: The Untold Story of My Abduction, in 2018 and appeared on Celebrity Big Brother UK (season 22) that same year.

The six-part BBC drama Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story was developed with her direct input. It premiered in 2024 and debuted on AMC+ in August 2025.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.