RedHanded - The Kidnapping of Chloe Ayling: Sex Slave or Scammer? | #441

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

In 2017, British glamour model Chloe Ayling went through a terrifying ordeal: abducted from a fake modelling shoot in Italy, held hostage for days by an obsessed stalker, and told she’d been put up for sale into sex slavery on the dark web…Against all the odds, Chloe escaped – and lived to tell the tale. The only problem? No one believed her.With headlines declaring her story a hoax and dismissing her as a fame-hungry wannabe, Chloe was only vindicated when her captors were convicted. But even now, the doubts still haven’t gone away.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / InstagramSources and more available on redhandedpodcast.com

The Bell Air Direct app includes crash assist, which detects an accident the moment it happens, and even offers you emergency assistance at the tap of a button. Okay, but what if I don't have an accident? Well, just keep on, keeping on. Bell Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply. Bonjourno, listeners. I did 200 days of Duolingo Italian.

And then I woke up one day and I was like, I don't care about this anymore. And I stopped doing it. I never would have known from your confident. It's all fallen out of my head. My friend's mum was here from Sardinia and she doesn't speak much English at all and I know so deeply in my soul how it feels to just be in a situation where everyone is speaking a language

that you understand but you can't interject. But like essentially what I'm trying to say is I have been around more Italian than usual recently because of Michael's mum. Nothing, nothing I answer in Spanish. It's completely gone. Well that's the only Italian word you have to say today. Okay, do you promise?

Apart from places. Milano. Oh, fine. Other than that. That one I can probably manage. We can do it. Okay. We, two podcasters, both are like indignity, have a tale that absolutely gripped the UK back in the summer of 2017.

And it is, if you hadn't guessed from my Shakespeare and Saruti already saying it, in Fair Milano, where we lay our scene. A 20-year-old glamour model. called Chloe Ailing, calmly walked into the British consulate and reported her own kidnapping. I am obsessed with this case. Chloe claimed she had been snatched from a fake shoot by a mafia-style criminal network, placed for sale into sex slavery on the dark web, and kept hostage for a week. But after realizing her abductor had a bizarre Romeo and Juliet fan, to see that cast her as his unwilling leading lady,

Chloe managed to convince her hapless captor to let her survive beyond the final curtain. It was a story so outlandish it was almost impossible to believe. But Chloe, she was already gearing up for an encore. Just hours after touching down in London, she was smiling and posing for the paparazzi in her mum's front garden,

calm and seemingly unruffled by her trough. tragic ordeal. Now, of course, the bloodthirsty British press swiftly smelled her at. Was Chloe Ailing truly a victim? Or was this just a big fat publicity stunt of Shakespearean proportions? Nearly a decade and a conviction later, doubt still lingers over Chloe's sensational story. So today, we are digging through the chaos, the clipbait and the media smear campaign to uncover what actually went down. They say all the world's a stage, but in this case,

the line between reality and fiction is blurrier than ever. I'm Siruti. I'm Hannah. And this is red-handed, and the unbelievable case of Chloe Ailing. Let's start by meeting our key players. Leading lady is, of course, Chloe Ailing.

Born and raised in Coldston, South London, that is where Linda Casey is from. Isn't that funny? That's very well. That's the other episode we're going to record today for Patreon bonus episode. That's very weird. And actually, I went for dinner with my friend the other day. And she's like, we're moving out of like, you know, peak London.

We're looking at Colston. And I was like, I've no idea what that is. And now I do. There's a word for when you learn a new word and then you start hearing it everywhere. Or a new town. Yeah. I don't know what that is. Maybe that's the word I'll know and then I'll keep hearing that.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. We're in Colston. Wow. Apparently a lovely little town, which is why she has. wants to move there. Lovely little town. It's Croydon. Well, to be fair, when I was researching Linda Casey for that documentary I did, that's what people say.

Sure. It's that, like, it's country enough, but it's 20 minutes into Croydon. Sure. It looks like a nice little market town. I'm sure it's fine. I just think all market towns are the same. Yeah. Because they are.

They are. But what do I know? Anyway, Chloe grew up in an average working class. home with her Polish single mum, Biaata, and Chloe did well at school and she had plans to study law. But after giving birth to her son Ashton and her late teens, Chloe swapped the textbooks for cameras and opted to pursue a career in modelling instead. She signed up with supermodel, which sounds really ominous, an agency run by a lawyer slash part-time DJ Phil Green. Chloe's mum and mates weren't exactly sold on Phil

who, to be fair, had a bit of a creepy uncle vibe. Any part-time DJ, I would say. Yeah. But Chloe trusted him to look after her and to raise her profile. Because this girl wasn't content with your bog standard local catalogue gigs. Chloe wanted social media stardom

and to be a household name. I think this is the era when there was definitely like a cohort, of girls slash women who were going into the glamour industry who wanted, I guess, to replicate what Katie Price slash Jordan have done. And, you know, say what you want about her. She is most definitely a household name. Sure is. She's a lot smarter than people let on.

I'm just thinking of... I didn't witness this and neither did you, but we went to the podcast show last year or the year before in London. And the rest of our team went to go see Katie Price do her session. I'm sure even outside of the UK people know who Katie Price slash Jordan is, right? You guys know who she is? So yeah, they went to go see her, do her talk about her new podcast, and they were like, yeah, it was wild. It was like exactly what you would expect from her.

And then at the end, there was a guy in the audience who stood up, you know, when they were like doing the Q&As. And he was like, I haven't got a question, but I have written a rap or a poem or something. I can't remember which one it was for you, Katie, can I read it out to you? and the team were like, she just looked him, dead in the eye and said, no. Which you've got to love. I do. I love it so much. Nah.

And may I remind you of the period of my life where I sold her Diamante bridles at horse shows? You don't have to remind me. I think about it. It's my Roman Empire. I think about it at least once a week. I've got a picture somewhere. Find it. I'll find it.

So that's what I think Chloe is going for. Right. That's what her ambition. She wants me to sell bridal store at Olympia. And she wants slightly unhinged men to write her poetry that she can just rub off. Slightly. But we never heard it. It might have been a masterpiece.

How would we know? And while she was too short at 5'4 foot six to make it on the Hocatour runway scene, tell that to Cape Moss. She's 5'4 and from Croydon. She's 5'4? Yeah, she's tiny. That's the whole reason that like she was such a huge deal, obviously, before the Coke, because she was tiny.

And she was the first model to like super duper make it who wasn't massively tall. See, I have a bit of a... I don't really have much of a chip on my shoulder about my height. But this weekend, I was doing some calculations and I now do have a chip on my shoulder

about my height. Because apparently if you take... And obviously this is very like... Oh, she's 5'6, sorry, Kate Moss is 5'6. 5.6, fair enough. This is obviously very generally speaking. But typically if you take the pair of... of a child, you can work out. On average, obviously there are anomalies, the height that the

children are going to be. Right. And I worked it out. And I should be taller. Yeah, but your mum did sniff a lot of petrol. Yeah. And electrocute herself, which is correct with me. I'm outraged. I've been shortchanged at least two inches. Short changed. At least two inches. I worked it out. Do you know how you work it out? You add dad's height plus mum's height. and then if it's a girl, you minus five inches and then divide it by two. If it's a boy, you add the heights together, you add five inches and divide it by two. And that's the height that your children will be. And I was like, I should be five four.

And I'm not outrageous. You can have a few of my inches. I don't need them. Please. If only it worked like that. Anyway, let's get back to this. Chloe was 5'6 just like Kate Moss and she also had other assets she had gorgeous long blonde hair pretty smile, curvy figure

she was practically built for your dad's favourite bit of his morning routine page three wasn't it wild when we as a country had page three and nobody really saw a problem with it this is what I was thinking I feel like that's definitely yes but then I'm like it's way worse the shit we have now

And we all like pretend that's okay? What, the paedophiles? The paedophiles. And like, only fans. And like, that's just there. But that wasn't for sale at the newsagent. But it's like for sale like on this phone everyone has. Do you not think, I was thinking the same thing.

I was like, page three, for our non-UK listeners, let me just explain in case they are wondering what the fuck we're talking about. Starting in the 1970s, page three was a thing where national tabloids, like the Sun and the Daily Mirror featured topless female models on, you guessed it, the third page with a cheeky little teaser on the front cover. And it was definitely in the UK like a cultural phenomenon. Everyone in this country who is above the age of,

I don't even know how old are people now, above the age of 20 knows what page 3 is? I think it might be more than that. 25? I don't know. Oh no. Okay, let's just keep going. Look, I no longer celebrate the passage of time.

I think it's unshique. Sure. So just meet me where I am. So, okay, I can tell you when it was scrapped. It was scrapped in 2019. So yes, 25. Okay. So yeah, it was scrapped in 2019.

And yes, I think there is definitely a thing when it was scrapped of like, oh my God, I can't believe we allowed that to happen. And I get it because it was literally just like you'd go get petrol and there'd just be like. I think that's the difference for me. Like, Only fans is consumed in the privacy of your own home. Sure. Whereas page three was like in your face, you know. You can go anywhere.

No, you're right, it couldn't. And you'd often see it where there'd be like in the stands outside and like somebody would have ripped a couple of the pages. And then there's just like a pair of tips that everybody's looking at. But, you know, harmless probably now, given all the hardcore pornography that children are concerned. So yes, this is where Chloe got her first big break. Two years before it was scrapped. So in 2017, this was Chloe's first ever professional gig.

And that was no mean feat. According to her agent Phil Green, part-time DJ, in the glamour modeling world, being a page three girl was like being on the cover of Vogue, except during page three of the sun and like men who have got like sausage roll grease on their hands. Oh no. That's what's happening. In my head, I also like, I also like, I'm. I can only think of Phil Green as the top shop guy. Oh. So she's got budget Phil Green.

I see, in my mind, he's Phil from Phil and Kirsty, which like poor Phil. Anyway. So, admittedly, the reporting in page three in these newspapers wasn't quite as chic as vogue. Reporting. Yeah, in big, big air quotes. But Chloe's first shoot did have this charming little write-up. Curvy Chloe is making her page three debut today. and what a frilly thriller she is.

The 19-year-old Surrey Sweetie is studying to be a lawyer, but has always had a secret yearning to appear in briefs in your favourite paper. It's not bad copy. It's pretty good. Frilly thriller, that's quite good. Now, you might be cringing. We're not. We actually quite appreciated that.

And Chloe certainly did because for her, this was a stepping stone to the fortune and fame that she had been dreaming of. Chloe actually went on to do several page three shoots and rapidly became one of Phil's most requested models, which opened the door to more well-paying gigs, earning her up to £600 a day. At just 19 years old, Chloe was flying high, but she wanted more.

So, when a request came through her agency for a solo glamour shoot in Paris in April 2017, Chloe leapt at the chance. The gig involved modelling customs. sized motorcycle levers and the photographer, an Italian guy called Andre Lazio, had asked for Chloe specifically. After not-top shop Phil Green did his usual checks, which was a quick Google search, and said everything seemed legit, Chloe was excited to explore a new city and finally see the Eiffel Tower.

Ugh, boo, apparently was voted the most disappointing tourist attraction in the world. Yeah, well, those Japanese businessmen all get Paris Syndrome because it's so disappointing, don't they? Miserable. The fact that all her expenses would be paid for with a hotel stay before the morning shoot, that was just the cherry on top of the croissant. But Chloe's trip was interrupted

when chaos hit the city of Le Mour. A policeman was shot on the Chonseilise in a terror attack, so metro stations were shut and there was a heavy police presence everywhere. Advised to wait at all out in her hotel, Chloe didn't feel particularly freaked out. In those days, she felt invincible, like nothing bad could ever touch her.

Still, fate had a spanner in the works for Chloe. The next morning she got a call to say that the shoot had actually been called off. The studio had been raided in the fallout of the terrorist incident, so instead of hair and makeup, Chloe was being bundled straight to the airport. After a hiccup with her prepaid taxi, the photographer Andre, a skinny guy and sporty sunglasses, came to her rescue and covered the fare. They chatted for a few minutes,

and Andre said that he hoped they would be able to reschedule the shoot. Paris not working out was a bit of a bummer, but Chloe wasn't the sort of girl to wallow. Instead, she turned it to her advantage, notching up a few tabloid collar minches back in the UK with her account of being caught up in a terror attack. Cut to a few months later, when another email pinged into Phil Green's inbox.

The leather shoot was back on, and this time it was going to be at Andre's new studio premises in Milan. While Chloe was buzzing, her mum Biata was a bit less enthusiastic. She didn't trust Phil, and she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. She begged Chloe not to go to Italy, but with stars in her eyes, Chloe went anyway. Just like in Paris, she was put up in a swanky hotel and the shoot was booked for the next day.

Everything seemed totally familiar and above board. Until. The morning of Wednesday the 12th of July when everything changed. And what we've got for you now is Chloe's account of what happened next. After a quick breakfast at the hotel, Chloe got a taxi to the address that she'd been given.

Confused about her. which building to go into, she rang the number on Andre's emails and asked for directions. A guy calling himself Daniel answered, telling Chloe to head inside and wait for Andre. As Chloe made her way in, something felt a bit off. Photo studios are usually noisy and full of movement, but this place was dead silent. spotting a handwritten sign that just said the word studio, Chloe approached the next door. And then a gloved hand suddenly clamped over her nose and mouth.

Chloe couldn't breathe. She kicked and struggled, but then another man appeared in front of her, clad in a black ski mask and holding a syringe. She watched the needle sink into her wrist. And then everything went black. The next thing Chloe knew, she felt like she was underwater. Her mouth was taped and her hands were cuffed.

She grogily realized that she was enclosed in something, rubbery and thick. Chloe heard a foreign language radio blaring and that's when it hit her. She was bundled up inside a bag in the boot of a moving car. Dressed in only the pink velvet body suit that she put on under her clothes that morning, Chloe was sweating so much that the tape slipped from her mouth easily. She started shouting as loud as she could, hoping to get the attention of the driver in case they didn't know she was in there. And then the car stopped.

Two men in ski masks unzipped the bag and stared down at Chloe before pouring sparkling water in her mouth. Chloe didn't know what they wanted, but she realized they were trying to keep her alive. bizarrely, at one point one of the men removed his mask and got into the boot with her, almost spooning her. Chloe desperately tried to ask him where they were going and who the driver was, but he simply told her in broken English that he didn't know.

This guy was strangely gentle with her, pulling up her top to cover her modesty and calling for the driver to stop so they could undo her cuffs for the rest of the journey. Finally, after several hours, the car, slowed to a stop for a final time. The unmasked man ordered Chloe to climb back into the bag or be drugged again.

Paralyzed with fear, Chloe complied and let them carry her into a house. It was dank and cold. The shutters were down, so Chloe had no idea where she was. She was led up a set of concrete steps to an upstairs room with a sleeping bag on the floor

and cuffed by her wrists and ankles to a wooden chest of drawers. Chloe laid on the sleeping bag for what felt like hours. She heard male voices arguing downstairs and the sound of a door slamming. And then a man walked in, who Chloe didn't recognise at first. He told her,

I don't know if you remember, but we briefly met in Paris. And then it dawned on Chloe, was Andre, the photographer. Smirking, he said, said his name was actually M.D. And he definitely wasn't a photographer. None of them ever are.

Don't trust them. He sat on the bed and started telling Chloe what had apparently gone down. And buckle up, everyone, because this is going to be a wild fucking ride. I do often wonder, often is strong. I have previously had this thought. What happened to the page three photographers? Where did they go? Paparazzi's.

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. They all became part-time DJs probably. Anyway, the mysterious MD told Chloe that he was a high-ranking operative of an Eastern European Mafia organisation called Black Death Group. Yeah. If they tell you, no, they aren't. And look, the problems start immediately, right?

Now, who is to blame for the problems we're going to come to later? But we're going to stick with the story for now. What I would say at this point is if I had been abducted by a bunch of men and they start taking their masks off, I'm like, I'm dead. Yep. I'm dead. No one takes their mask off if they're not going to kill you later unless something weird is going on, which we'll get back to. Unless it didn't happen. Or they're nuts.

So many questions. Let's continue. So Black Death Group operated through the deep world. which is even worse, even shadier than the dark web. And they were involved in all sorts of horrible stuff, drugs, arms, deals, assassinations, and obviously sex trafficking, Le Classique. And Chloe listened in horror, as MD casually explained, that the group would routinely sell kidnapped girls between 14 and 20 years old.

Virgins sold for the most, and most of the buyers were wealthy Saudi Arabians. Yeah. So basically it's the plot of Taken. So it would appear, yes. I'm just saying this doesn't happen. No, no. I'm sure it absolutely does fucking happen. I just find it odd that you would kidnap somebody,

take your mask off, and then Bond villain style, explain to them your entire business. Yeah. I don't know why. Including age range of girls you traffic. Just a little flip chart, little pointer. I don't know. I don't know why this is happening.

Here is my passport. This is my mum's main. a name. Anyway, once these girls were sold, the Black Death Group would pass these girls around as sex slaves until inevitably the men who bought them got bored of her. At which point, the girl would

most likely be fed to their pet tigers. Yeah. That's not us making a joke. That's what Chloe says MD told her. Right. But then MD revealed that there had actually been a bit of a cock-up with Chloe's

abduction. He grumbled that the stupid Romanians, the two goons who had brought her to this house, had misunderstood his instruction that Chloe must not be taken with Chloe must be taken. And so they took her. It's always someone's first day. Now, according to MD, the Black Death had a rule that mothers shouldn't be trafficked. But before you go thinking this is some of the same. sort of nice code of ethics situation. It was actually just because having a baby quite significantly

devalues the worth of a sex slave on the black market. That I believe. Yes. So Chloe's head was absolutely spinning as she tried to process everything she was hearing. If it was all just a mistake, then surely she could just go home, right? Well, no, because they've told you their entire business and their entire criminal organisation, and they've taken their masks off. But there was a bigger problem because MD told her it wasn't going to be that simple. Chloe had already been advertised.

She was officially up for sale. And what MD showed Chloe next was complete nightmare fuel. She had her own advert on the Black Death Group site, selling her like an old top on Vinted. Wrapped in the Black Death Group's signature creepy branding, which is like Plague Doctor, a clip art that someone's put together on Microsoft paint. Yeah.

They really lean into the plague doctor as their logo of choice. Again, why are you showing her the advert? Why is any of this happening? Why are you advertising your criminal enterprise with a logo? I mean, you've got to stand out in a busy people trafficking crowd. They're putting it all on the deep web. The Saudis are sat at home, checking it out. And they're like, oh, yes, the plague doctor.

They do good girls, apparently. And I know we're making light of this. I genuinely believe that this sort of horrible, horrible thing happens. Of course it is. It's not even a question. It's just what's actually going on here is the question. The ad featured chilling photos of Chloe lying unconscious and drugged on the floor along with her name, age and her measurements.

And right there, in black and white, the advert stated that Chloe was up for sale at a sex slavery auction on Sunday with a starting bid of 300,000 US dollarie dues. Chloe had just five days left of freedom before she was going to be sold into sex slavery. But then came a hint of hope in the form of MD himself. He claimed that when he saw Chloe's advert, he was furious about the mess

and had personally stepped in to handle it. Now he told Chloe, while he didn't usually deal with the girls himself because that was far beneath his pay grade, in this case he was taking a stand. With everything he said, MD positioned himself as Chloe's ally, the one person in the fearsome black death group

who was willing to fight her corner. And while he said he wanted to facilitate her release, he claimed that it was sadly already too late to simply pull Chloe from this auction. Her advert had already generated high interest and they couldn't risk upsetting their very valuable clients. The price had been set and it had to be paid. Luckily, MD had a solution up his creepy sleep.

He told Chloe that if her people could raise the starting bid of $300,000, he'd let her go. Chloe's heart sank. She knew there was no way that her agent or her family could afford that kind of money. So, at MD's urging, she named the three wealthiest bloke she could think of in her circle. These were her investment banker friend called Rory McCarthy, celebrity agent David Reed, and Paul Baxendale Walker, former porn star, an owner of Loaded magazine. It was a desperate stamp in the dark, but it was all Chloe had.

MD told Chloe that he would pass these names onto her agent, Phil Green, with the hope of getting the ball rolling on raising that money. All there was left to do was wait. Now while all this is going down, back in the UK, Chloe was due to land at Gatwick on Wednesday night. But of course, she never arrived. Her frantic mum called Phil Green, Chloe's agent, who didn't take it that seriously at first?

shrugging that maybe Chloe's phone had died and maybe there'd just been a delay with her flight. And in that single interaction, I think I honestly understand why Chloe's mum wasn't Phil's biggest fan. Like Chloe's gone off on her own. She's still very young. She's only 19. She's gone off on her own to a solo shoot in a different country

and he's just like, me? I don't know. But the next morning, things took a terrifying turn. Phil got an email from MD that was absolutely riddled with typos but had a crystal clear message. Chloe was being held for ransom. Phil panicked and got the police involved

who took over his computer and communicated with MD from then on pretending to be Phil, part-time DJ, part-time agent, full-time creep. Meanwhile, the Italian police investigation kicked off in Milan with the coolest sounding crime-fighting duo ever, Serena Ferrari.

That's a great name. And Jan Luca Simon Tachi. It's okay. So Serena Ferrari and Jan Luca Samantachi were the lead investigators on the Chloe case, and their search yielded immediate red flags. At the building where Chloe was dropped off, they found her phone, shoes and clothes.

To no surprise, a few basic inquiries revealed that it wasn't a legitimate photo studio at all. Following the paper trail from the building rental, they discovered that the phone number had been registered with a Polish passport in the name of Daniel Zawada. But after checking with Polish authorities, it quickly became clear that the idea was fake. So the police, no matter how good their names, had no leads as to where Chloe was and time was running out. that auction approach. Yeah. Now in captivity, MD finally got a reply

from Phil to his ransom email. All it said? Received. It was a gut punch for Chloe who felt like Phil clearly didn't give a shit about her. Even MD was shocked by what he perceived

as a lack of urgency from Phil the agent. So we fired off multiple follow-up emails demanding more cash. As she counted down to when she would be auctioned off, Chloe could only pray that somehow her camp would scramble up the funds before it was too late.

And while they waited, MD seemed happy to keep Chloe entertained. So he doesn't just leave her in this room and go about his nefarious Black Death business because, remember, he's a very high-up member of this criminal organisation. He just hangs out with her. in this farmhouse he's got a locked up in. He would spin endless yarns about his exploits in the notorious Black Death Group.

He even boasted about his extensive military training and claimed that he'd risen through the ranks to become a level 12 operative out of 20, giving him special status. MD also told Chloe that he was an assassin who had killed thousands of people, delivering his news as casually as if he was describing a video game.

Thousands. Thousands. You're doing too much. And as he left a plate of food by Chloe's head, he led her into another little secret. His method of choice was poison. Lame. If you're going to choose, obviously,

actually, what would you do? If I was going to be an assassin. If you were going to be an assassin, what would be your calling card? Mm-hmm. Actually, I'd probably pick poison. Poison dart. That's a good one.

But then everybody can see the dart and they know. Yeah, I want them to know. Oh, you want them to know. I want them to know that it was me. A big red fluffy feather. It's big red. It's big red. So, yeah, while Chloe's listening to all this,

she's thinking that it's this weird combination, right? It feels like MD is simultaneously trying to scare her, but also trying to impress her. But, according to Chloe, no matter how afraid she was, she never once let it show on her face. Even MD was surprised by how stoic she was, remarking that she was handling it better than the other girls who would scream and tearfully beg for mercy.

Because if there is one thing that Chloe Ailing is not, it's a crybaby. Ever since she was a kid, she hated showing emotions in front of people, and she definitely wasn't about to start now. So, throughout her entire ordeal, Chloe remained calm, cool and placid. And while that composure may well have held the key to her survival in that tiny room, back in the real world, it might just prove to be Chloe's undoing.

As the hours blurred into days, MD's treatment of Chloe began to gradually shift. He started by loosening the physical restraints, undoing her handcuffs and letting her move around more freely upstairs. Still, he always was sure to remind her that there was no point trying to. to run because they were in a remote location in Germany, and if Chloe escaped, then the other black death operatives in the area would kill her on site. He reminded her that no police knew she was there and that there was nowhere to run. But the truth was, making a break for it didn't even cross Chloe's mind. In her eyes, MD wasn't just her jailer. He also held the key to her

freedom. And as far as kidnappers go, MD was almost gentlemanly. He let Chloe take showers and use the bathroom on her own and gave her a fresh set of clothes. He treated her with a level of respect that felt deliberate, often reminding her that the Romanians wouldn't treat her in the same way. If she'd been a bitch and kicked off, MD claimed that he would have let them shove her in the barn outside, like they normally did with the other girls. MD made Chloe feel like she had a special level of protection, and as rough as it all was, it could have been a hell of a lot worse if he wasn't there. And so, slowly, an uneasy sort of trust began to form between the pair. MD trusted that Chloe wouldn't run or raise the alarm, and in return, Chloe trusted that

MD wouldn't hurt her. So when he asked if she wanted to swap the sleeping bag for the bed beside him, Chloe accepted. From the second night of her captivity, they slept side by side, under separate blankets. And after a few days, Chloe clocked something else about her captor. M.D. didn't just see her as a hostage anymore.

He liked her. He really liked her. MD told Chloe she was beautiful, and once even leaned in for a kiss. Chloe instinctively recoiled, but she didn't scream or get angry. She says that she knew outright rejection could tip the balance in a very bad way for her. Instead, Chloe stalled and said she just wasn't in the right headspace, but after she was released, she'd be more open to seeing where things went.

MD apparently lit up at this. Chloe had given him hope that after this was all over, he might just have bagged himself a glamour-model girlfriend. It's like bad fan fiction. Yeah. And at that moment, for Chloe, everything shifted on its axis. Suddenly this wasn't just a kidnapping. It was a love story. Romeo had found his Juliet, well at least in his delusional mind. As for Chloe, she suddenly realized that if she ever wanted to see her mum and her son ever again,

she would need to keep MD's twisted fantasy alive. It was a decision that would get her a lot of flack down the line but Chloe has always maintained that she wouldn't change a thing about what she did in captivity because it had worked. Back in the UK, the days stretched on with fading hopes. By Saturday morning, the ransom negotiations had stalled completely and all Phil Green could offer was a measly 20,000 quid.

And that had been put in by Chloe's wealthy banker mate Rory. After submitting the offer, they were met with radio silence. The day of reckoning loomed closer. Dread set in. And around 3 a.m. on Sunday, another email landed from MD with just three short words. She's gone. Mate. Officers feared that they had completely fumbled the bag on this tricky case.

Had Chloe been sold? Or worse? Was she already dead? They had no idea that in that ramshackle house, Chloe was still very much alive, and she could almost taste her freedom. With big old fluttery heart eyes, MD told Chloe that he had a new plan to get her out.

He said he would deal with his superiors in the Black Death Group, selling several of his own properties worldwide and paying a substantial sum in exchange for Chloe's freedom. The only snag? Chloe would have to stump up $50,000 herself to be paid within a month of being back in the UK. Now, to ask outsiders, that sounds insanely suspicious. What kind of kidnapper just lets their hostage go

with some sort of IOU note? One that doesn't exist. But Chloe was so desperate at this point that she says she just didn't question anything. Ever helpful, MD even had an ingenious suggestion for how she could raise the money. He reckoned that the story of Chloe's impossible kidnap would give her tons of exposure in the form of modelling gigs and showbiz work that could comfortably cover her debt. Mental? Absolutely. Compelling to Chloe's exhausted brain, yeah. So she accepted

the terms and committed herself fully to MD's utterly bonkers plan. According to MD, the last thing they needed was a release letter from his superiors in the Black Death Group, laying out the terms of Chloe's release, because if there's one thing that large-scale mafia-like organisations love, it's paperwork. Mad for it. A very meticulous paper trail of what they're doing. Got to get the admin right. So, while they waited for it to land in his inbox, MD said that he'd take Chloe to the local

village shop to buy a pair of shoes. On Sunday morning, Chloe took her first faltering steps outside the ramshackle farmhouse where she'd been cooped up for almost a week and froze. Stretched out before her were the Italian Alps. A view so perfect could have been a desktop background. Under different circumstances, she'd have been blown away. That's when MD admitted that he had told her a teensy little white lie. They weren't in Germany. They'd never left Italy.

But he did drive down to the village anyway. And MD told Chloe that she had to act like his girlfriend. He warned that the Black Death agents were watching their every move, and they would kill her if she caused a scene. It was a surreal experience for Chloe as they strolled through the village like an ordinary pair of young lovers. Feeling the sun on her skin, trying on trainers, eating fresh fruit from a market stall,

none of it seemed real. Chloe said that she felt hypnotised like a machine being controlled. The only thing she could focus on was complying with MD's commands and playing her role perfectly. After returning to the house, the long-awaited release letter finally came through, and it gave the go-ahead for Chloe to be set free. But like MD had warned, there were a hell of a lot of teasencies. Chloe had to pay 50K in Bitcoin within a month of being let go,

which she would finance through media exposure and selling her survival store. She was also expected to promote the Black Death group in her tell-all interviews, which like, why? Why, as like a secret mafia organization would you want somebody to promote your group? I don't know what that even means. But, you know, I haven't read the paperwork. And if that's not confusing enough, things only get worse. The number one rule was that Chloe must not, under any circumstances, involve police.

Think about that for a second. How was she supposed to go around telling everybody what had happened to her, this tragic ordeal she needs the story, she needs like to get the headlines about being a survivor of a sex trafficking ring? But she's also not allowed to have any sort of legal investigation take place. But Chloe didn't have time to worry about the logistics. This was it. In the early hours of Monday, the 17th of July,

six days after she was first snatched from the empty warehouse. Chloe Ealing was on her way back to Milan. During a long car ride from the countryside, MD explained what needed to happen next. He would drop her off a 20-minute walk away from the British consulate. She was going to go in, identify herself as Chloe Ealing, the kidnapped model, and say that she had escaped her captors and called a friend who had kindly brought her to Milan. But not stuck around to come into the consulate with her. Couldn't even be asked to walk her to the door of the British consulate.

Yeah, I'll come pick you up, but I really have got a hell of a day. I'll drop you off about 20 minute walk away. Is that right? You've got these new trainers. Chloe was not to say that MD was her captor. In this version, he was just a good Samaritan. But then things all went a little bit pear-shaped.

The journey went a lot quicker than MD expected. So they arrived in Milan at half seven, a whole two hours before the consular opened. MD got jittery not wanting to leave Chloe unsupervised for so long. So he took her for breakfast and then, walked her to the consulate himself, and he went in with her. Together they passed various layers of security, including armed guards, until Chloe reached the desk and declared who she was.

Missing model Chloe Ailing had been found. And the consulate knew exactly who Chloe was. She was a high-priority interpol missing persons case. But they played it cool and asked Chloe to come to be interviewed in a private room alone. This rattled MD, who insisted on coming with her but was of course denied. Inside a little room with the consulate staff, Chloe could see MD's staring at her through the glass door, and she felt herself sweating. Now at first, Chloe stuck to the story that MD was just a friend who had helped her. But then, Chloe says, she suddenly thought, fuck it, and told them everything.

The next thing she knew, MD was being arrested by police and led her away. way. Her six-day ordeal was finally over. But now, a whole new nightmare was about to begin. At the police station, Chloe was grilled for over 15 hours by Ferrari and Simon Tachi. Chloe says that this was actually the most terrifying part of the whole thing, because while she was technically free, in her head she still felt like a prisoner. The Black Death Agents were still still out there at any moment they could find out she'd spoken to the police and broken their golden rule. Without MD, she had no one to protect her from them. Chloe felt like she'd signed her own death warrant. And then came a huge curveball that Chloe had never even considered. The possibility

that not everyone might believe her. Because, you see, Chloe had left out a pretty important detail in her police interviews. She didn't mention the trip into the village to buy shoes with MD. And now the Stony-Face prosecutor wanted to know why she'd lied about it. Because, remember, she's being held captive. He takes her down to buy trainers,

he takes her back to the farmhouse, they wait for the release letter to come from, you know, head office, and then he brings her to the consulate. So that is a separate trip that she doesn't tell the police about. But investigators had found the CCTV of the pair of them in the village and they'd also spoken to the lady from the hiking shop where they had bought the trainers

who said that they just seemed like a normal couple. Chloe says she didn't mention this trip at the time because she'd already been held for hours and questioned again and again by this point and she said she knew it would trigger a lot more difficult questions that she just didn't have the energy for she just wanted to go home. But the police were asking her, why hadn't she run? How could she explain how cozy they look together?

Deep down, Chloe probably sensed that if she had told them about this particular trip, it probably would have made her story seem even flimsyer. And she was right. Her omission cast a giant black cloud over her entire account, with the prosecutor even asking her, how can we believe anything you say? It hit Chloe like a ton of bricks. She hadn't even thought about the possibility of people not trusting her version of events.

and now a single pair of trainers threatened to destroy everything. Chloe was forced to stay in Milan for over a week while the investigation continued. She was moved to a safe house, a woman's refuge hostel with grim conditions that made her feel even more like a prisoner, even though officially she was classified as a victim. And even after a kind woman from the British consulate took her under her wing and helped her find a secure apartment, Chloe was constantly on edge. She was convinced that Black Death was still out there,

and could strike at any moment. All she wanted was to go home. But first, she would have to return to the scene of her captivity. The police took Chloe back to the farmhouse, a dilapidated old place in the tiny hamlet of view near Turin, and they asked her to show them where everything had happened. True to form, Chloe stayed calm and collected, but her body language gave away how shaken she was to be back there.

Chloe recalled every single detail of the house. with impressive accuracy. It all checked out. And that was the turning point for the Italian authorities. Finally, they felt confident that Chloe was telling the truth. But there was one last hurdle before Chloe could go home. She bravely spoke at a pretrial hearing for MD on the 4th of August, where the judge praised her testimony as extremely precise, specific and detailed.

This pretrial hearing is where Chloe began to realize. for the first time that maybe things weren't quite what they seemed. She had always seen MD as her saviour, the guy who had stepped in after her bungled abduction and fought to free her at great personal cost. But now in court, she heard a very different story. Chloe learned that the photos of her drugged at the sham studio were taken on MD's phone.

So, not quite the dumb Romanians that had done it. And then slowly the sickening truth fell into place. M.D. was actually one of the masked men who had taken her. He hadn't come to save her. He was the reason she was in the house in the first place. And there was one more question Chloe was finally about to learn the answer to. Who actually was the mysterious MD? Turns out, he was a Polish guy called Lucas Herber,

A computer programmer by trade, he was 30 years old and happened to live near Birmingham. So obviously the million pound question was, was he really a notorious dark deep web criminal? And we will get to that when we get to his trial, but short answer, no, no he was not. It looked as if he had fabricated the whole black death web of lies as a part of some bizarre fantasy in kidnapping Chloe. The only other person involved was his brother, Michael, the unmasked guy from the car.

For Chloe, this was a mind-fuck of epic proportions. She wasn't being hunted by international criminals. She wasn't in some sort of high-stakes mafia plot. She could finally stop looking over her shoulder. Or at least that's what she thought. Because Chloe had a big shitstorm coming her way. Back in London, Chloe didn't have time to... enjoy her reunion with her loved ones.

She'd literally just stepped off the plane when the paparazzi were already swarming her mum's front lawn. According to Chloe, this is not what she wanted. If it were up to her, she'd have kept the whole thing a secret. Now that might be hard to believe, since we know that Chloe wanted to be famous. But it does make sense that even someone who wants fame may not want that fame

for the worst trauma they had ever endured, according to her. But ultimately, Chloe didn't have much choice in the matter. The story had already broken in Italy, due to their custom of sharing high-profile case information with the media. So it was only a matter of time before it hit the UK press. Peering out of the windows of her mum's modest semi, it looked like that time was now.

So, on the advice of her banker friend, Rory, Chloe decided to give them what they wanted, a statement and some snaps, in the hopes that they would finally leave. She stepped out into the garden, dressed in a skimpy vest top and tiny shorts. Her hair was voluminous, and she was immaculately made up.

She looked every inch the glamorous page three girl, and not what anyone had expected from a traumatised kidnap victim. Chloe read out a short statement where she described the terror of her ordeal. Her words were powerful. But her delivery didn't quite match. And we've got it for you now.

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. She sounded monotone, flat and unaffected, almost like it was a rehearsed script, which, like, if I was giving a press conference, I would practice. Yeah, I would absolutely plan what I was going to say.

And I think the way she speaks and she uncomfortably sort of laughs at points, this is what was sort of like setting people on edge of it. And also like as a nation, if I had to pick a type of person that would not be graciously received by the British public, it would be a page three model. Yeah. After she finished speaking, Chloe did what Chloe does best. She started posing. She grinned for photos treating the ad hoc press conference like a glamour.

shoot. Chloe says that she was just so relieved to be home that she couldn't help smiling, but people's bullshit detectors were a ringing. And from that point on, there was a massive red flashing question mark above Chloe Ailing and her story. The tabloids, as you can imagine, were brutal from the get-go, aggressively pushing the narrative that Chloe was a fraud and the whole thing had just been a publicity stunt. Journalists even track down her ex a man named Connor Keyes, who only fanned the flames further by claiming that he basically raised their son single-handedly,

while Chloe, quote, just loves the camera. Chloe's career as a glamour model was also taken as evidence that she must be fame-obsessed, vapid and morally bankrupt. The general consensus was basically, of course, she's not a real victim, because she gets her tits out for cash. We love that one.

Yeah. And look, we'll talk. about theories at the end, but I think it's important to remember, she's 19 years old. Yeah. And she is at the center of a media feeding frenzy when this story breaks. Like, can you think of a more exciting story for the press to talk about? She handles it badly, but she's got fucking part-time DJ Phil Green in her corner. Like, yeah. It's all just handled so, so poorly. I think it's also not lost on you guys listening. It certainly isn't lost on us. The incredible level of irony here, that the very same tabloids that had booked Chloe for page three repeatedly were now launching

a vicious crusade to drag her down. They even dredged up the CCTV footage of her walking with Herbert in that village and twisted it into evidence of this whole thing being a hoax, despite the fact that Italian authorities now completely believed Chloe. And yeah, there's a lot of headlines, but here's one actual headline from The Daily Star. Kidnap Page 3 Girl made it all up. They're just saying that without any evidence. That's just their theory that they're printing as a headline. Now, the Times later called out the misogyny and classism at play,

and Chloe herself still reckons that she would have been believed had she been like a teacher instead of a page 3 model. So, cast in a role she couldn't run from, Chloe found herself as the villain of the piece. But Chloe ailing ain't no quitter. She decided to fight back and try and take control of the narrative, dumping her old agent, Barginbin Phil Green, who she rightfully blamed for not doing adequate checks to protect her.

Chloe joined forces with flashy celebrity agent, Adrian Sington, and decided that it was time to tell her side of the story. And hey, if she could capitalize on her 15 minutes of fame, however unfortunate and makes some money in the process, why not? It's quite literally the only way the game is played. As Adrian put it, she could either become the poster girl for modern slavery or she could make money. And Chloe, unsurprisingly, chose the latter.

She signed a 30K deal with the mail on Sunday for an exclusive tell-all interview before embarking on a whistle-stop tour of all the major morning TV shows, including a particularly vicious grilling by Pierce Morgan on Good Morning Britain. But it'll also come out that you lied to the police. I brushed it off, I didn't lie. We did lie. I brushed it off. You lied? I was tired. I just said I don't know about the shoes.

Your idea of brushing it off, you lied. Well, the police still believed me. They asked you where did you? I shouldn't have a few random people. My point is, it doesn't help you. You don't think we should be able to judge you? Well, if I was just a 30-year-old woman, like not a model, do you think people would have the same opinions?

No, but I don't think so. I think if you're going to conduct media interviews, where you're being paid money and you're doing a book for thousands of pounds before there's even been a trial, I think we're perfectly entitled to ask you difficult questions. Yeah, that's fine, I can answer all of them. Yeah, so you're not being unfairly judged.

No, I don't mind. I can answer anything. You know, you're sitting here because you're promoting yourself, right? Yeah. I think doing the rounds of the TV shows like this, if Chloe thought she was going to win people over, it absolutely blew up in her face. In fact, the more publicity she did, the more it fueled the narrative that she just did this all for attention and the story was fake.

And look, we just listened to a clip there of her on Good Morning Britain. That's pretty much the same thing that happens again and again. She's very young still. And she's speaking very, very quickly and without much emotion. And I think it's like it's unusual for us to see people who are not media trained in these circumstances. And like, I'll be honest, I don't mean this, they're shade. Like, often people you see on social media, often people you see going on these sort of shows, even if they're not media trained, are very charismatic, are very confident.

She just isn't those things. And I think that works against her so significantly. People are just like, she kind of speaks in a weird way. She kind of presents herself in a strange way. She speaks very, very, very quickly without much emotion. And I think it just, is that indicative of her lying or is that indicative of her just being a bit of an old person? Anyway, we'll talk about it more later, but this really didn't help her. In fact, opinion polls claimed that over 90% of viewers had, quote,

very little sympathy for Chloe. And online, the hate train against her showed absolutely no signs of slowing. Twitter trended with sick memes of people filming themselves in suitcases begging for ransom, and even some models that she'd once considered her friends joined in. Chloe was furious at the injustice of it all. She knew it was a bizarre story. She even says in one of these interviews, if somebody told me this story,

I probably wouldn't believe them either. But her question was always, just because the story sounds crazy, that's what happened, so how is it my fault? Chloe hated how she was constantly expected to explain Lucas Herber's convoluted psychotic schemes, as if she was the one who was lying. In the end, Chloe realized that she couldn't fight fire with fire

and expect to come out looking like the good guy. All she could do was hope for a conviction back in Italy. And she hoped if that came, it would prove once and for all that she had been telling the truth. And that time came in December 2017, when the trial of Lucas Herber began in Milan. Despite his lawyers trying to force her, Chloe wasn't required to attend

since she'd already testified at a hearing in August. And the key thing you need to know here is that Italians do not fuck about when it comes to kidnapping cases. According to Chloe's lawyer, Francesco Pesche, it's easier to get away with murder. Kidnap cases come with hefty prison sentences of 20 to 25 years if found guilty. So in this case, unsurprisingly, the prosecution went in hard on Lucas Herber and left nothing to chance. Over 50 witnesses for the prosecution presented evidence in court that overwhelmingly corroborated Chloe's story. of her abduction. Most damningly, Chloe was found to have been given a near-lethal dose of ketamine

from traces in her hair along with needle marks on her wrist. A digital forensic investigation proved that Lucas had ordered black ski masks and a large black hold-all bag in the weeks before the kidnapping. And he'd researched how to create ricin and cyanides, which are both lethal poisons and if you've seen Breaking Bad, you know, can be made at home. And he also had made multiple searches for Chloe Ailing, Black Death and Sex Trafficking. The Herbert Brothers took out a loan of about $30,000 to finance the kidnapping. They rented the studio space and several cars and the farmhouse. In a phone call with his mum from prison, Lucas told her to dispose of his car

and log into his online accounts to delete incriminating evidence. And his password was twice. Twat-Twat won. Sure. Sure. Maybe that was like a set of guinea pigs he had when he was younger. What's Twat-Twatt in Polish? I don't know.

And as we hinted at before, it turned out that Lucas Herber was decidedly not the high-ranking mafioso that he had told Chloe he was. Shocking, I know. His laptop proved that he had created multiple email accounts and websites himself, including the supposed Black Death site with Chloe's auction details. And while there are rumours out there that the Black Death Group is a real group, somewhere out there on the Deep Dark Web, they actually seem to be more of a Reddit urban legend than a confirmed mafia.

An Interpol investigation found no evidence of them sex trafficking girls online, although admittedly the Deep Web is a nightmare to police, and its sites are unindexed. But we can safely say that even if it is real, even if the Black Death Group is real, Lucas Herber is not one of its members. Most likely, Herber had let his imagination run wild and used it as inspiration for his little plot. So whether he and his brother Michael actually thought the ruse could earn them some real money or if it was just some sort of elaborate role play, we'll talk about it in a bit.

I'm honestly, not totally sure. I think it possibly is both of those. things. But whatever it is, one thing we do know, Lucas Harbour was a certified nobody. So, with the Black Death Theory debunked, what did Lucas have to say for himself? Well, his testimony was a rambling mess that regularly contradicted itself. At one point, he claimed he was dying of leukemia and had staged the kidnapping to raise money for treatment, only to admit later that that wasn't true. So it's fair to say that the jury were taking everything Lucas had to say from then on, with a massive pinch of salt.

Overall, Lucas echoed the tabloid gossip to claim that the whole thing was a hoax cooked up between him and Chloe for the purpose of boosting her career. He claimed to have met Chloe through Facebook in 2015 when they started dating. Their plot was inspired by a film called By Any Means, which looks absolutely shit so we didn't bother.

But according to IMDB, it's about a C-List celebrity faking their abduction as a stunt. Lucas insisted that he was madly in love with Chloe and did everything to support her goal of becoming famous. But here's the thing. The prosecution found zero evidence of any digital communication between Lucas and Chloe

before the kidnapping. And if it was on Facebook, they would have. Yeah. So it was all total bullshit. And the jury saw right through him. On the 11th of June 2018, Lucas Herber was found guilty of kidnapping and extortion. Prosecutors described him as a narcissist and a fantasist who was obsessed with Missailing

and sentenced him to a whopping 16 years and nine months in prison. His brother Michael, who was an accomplice in the kidnapping and transportation of Chloe to the farmhouse, was also convicted in 2019 and got 16 years and eight months. The judge highlighted that the high sentences were a reflection of the grave risk posed to Chloe's life. The ketamindose and the suffocation in the boot of the car could absolutely have killed her. Later, these sentences were reduced. Lucas ended up getting 12 years and Michael to 5.

So what the hell was all this about? Are we talking money, obsession, both? Honestly, we'll probably never know for sure. We can certainly talk about it, but Lucas is sticking to his guns, Chloe's sticking to hers. What is clear is that Lucas Herber's behaviour was utterly bumbling and incredibly bizarre. As Chloe's lawyer put it, quote, what we thought at first was that he was either a genius or an absolute idiot.

We're tempted now to exclude the first. The police are certainly convinced it's the second. Whatever Lucas Herber's intentions, it turned out to be a spectacular amateur hour flop. You might think the conviction would have put the rumours about Chloe's innocence to bed. An Italian High Court found the Herber Brothers guilty of her kidnap. On paper, at least, it was finally proven that all of that did happen to her. But the public weren't going to fully listen to that, not even a little bit. While Chloe felt vindicated by the ruling, she says that the hate never went away.

In fact, she was criticised even more for what she did next. keen to ride high on the publicity wave that she had built, Chloe cashed in by publishing a book about her story, which is actually quite an interesting read, and she signed up for the next season of Celebrity Big Brother less than two months after Lucas was found guilty. Needless to say, it didn't help with the public's perception of her as an attention seeker, and as we've seen so many times before,

the Court of Public Opinion can be way more persuasive than any judge's ruling. So even with the law on her side, Chloe will always be remembered as the girl who faked a kidnapping. So let's now really look at the evidence and consider the possible theories and what we think could have happened to Chloe Ailing. I think one theory is that Lucas Herber was a people trafficker and he was really going to sell Chloe Ailing into sex slavery. And he's telling the truth, maybe he wasn't part of this like big, elaborate mafia gang, but maybe he really was going to sell her, maybe he really did feel bad for her, and then he let her go. Sure, let's call that theory one. Theory two, Lucas Herbert was absolutely obsessed with Chloe Ailing and kidnapped her in order to spend time with her, become her rescuer

and hero, and also maybe get a bit of a payoff. So maybe he thinks, like Chloe leads him to believe in order to survive, you know, not now, but when I'm out, maybe we'll see about the two of us being together and also a hefty little 50,000 pound payoff. Or theory three, Chloe was in on it all along. And the whole thing was this scheme cooked up between her and Lucas Herbert and his brother. They thought they were going to get some money, maybe out of her rich banker friend Rory, who would feel bad for her. And then when that didn't work, they shift gears to saying,

we'll just get the money out of, you know, selling your story, we'll split it and we'll be together. And maybe Chloe's lying to Lucas and she was just using him. So let's talk about it. I don't think that Lucas Herber, if we're talking about theory one, had the connections to sell Chloe into sex slavery. It's not just like actually selling something on Vintet, like you're going to need a network of people that want to buy this victim that you've abducted. Like a bunch of sadistic Saudis, for example. There's no evidence whatsoever that he had that kind of network. So, I don't know.

And if he was going to do this, why not stick to the plan? Apparently he was going to get at least $300,000 for her, which is a lot of. more money than I guess Chloe probably made even selling her story. Now the idea that Lucas Herber just fell in love with Chloe during her captivity and therefore that's why he let her go, well, after she'd seen his face seems a bit implausible if he really is this sex slave selling mafioso man, even if it is a solo mafioso. I don't know, it just seems implausible for people that would be working in the sex trafficking business.

When it comes to Chloe and her involvement or how much she knew, it does seem weird that the authorities could find no record of any communication between Herber and Chloe leading up to the abduction. They had only met in Paris once. Was that when they concocted this whole elaborate plot? And then were they smart enough to never speak to each other again until Milan? Yeah, you see that a lot online of people being like, so what if there was no evidence of communication between the two of them?

Maybe they had burn a phone that the police never found. Or maybe they had met in Paris and plan the whole thing then and then, you know, they just, like, go ahead with it in Milan. Like, I don't know. It seems pretty like, you need more texts than that just to get people together for a dinner. Do you know what I mean? Or was Paris just when Herber met and became obsessed with Chloe? Chloe did have to admit that she and Herber had been Facebook friends years before, but she was trying to make it as a social media model.

so basically she accepted any friend's requests that came her way. And this could also back up the idea that Herber had been stalking Chloe for some time before he met her. And there was ketamine in her hair, injection sites on her wrist and ligature marks around her arms and her legs. Those could have been part of the ruse, and even the fact that it was a near-lethal dose of ketamine could just be chalked up to stupidity and recklessness. It doesn't necessarily mean that Chloe didn't know. Yeah. And a lot of people point to like the video interviews of her that you see on Good Morning Britain and things like that where she seems quite sleepy. And people like she looks like she looks like she's a person who takes ketamine. She looks like a person who takes drugs. Like I'm not sold by the fact that there was ketamine in her system as to the fact that it was a kidnapping.

Now look, let's talk next about the idea that Chloe was compliant. Like with the shoe shopping trip or her sleeping next to Lucas Herbert in that bed A lot of people point to the fact like, look, she's in on it, she's in on it. It's all just a hoax. But like, surely that's just classic survival tactics. Yeah, that doesn't do it for me at all. To me, it doesn't prove that Chloe was involved. She's also explained that she was completely scared to run off because people all say,

well, when you took you into town for that shoe shopping thing, like why didn't you just signal to the woman who was selling you the shoes or try run away? like something, you were in a town. But she explains that she was too scared to run off because, firstly, he had told her Black Death Operatives are watching and someone will kill you if you try to run away. And also, she makes the very fair point

that there was a language barrier for her. She felt like if I do run away from this man, I need to be able to find somebody who can speak English to understand the batshit crazy story I'm about to tell them. So, I don't know. Again, her not running away and seeking help doesn't really prove it to me either.

So next up, it begs the question, why did Lucas Herber take her to breakfast before the consulate and takes such a big risk? Right. He says, I'm taking you to the consulate. We're going to go there. You're going to, you know, stick to the story. Why take her for breakfast? I think this kind of fits with the theory that he's obsessed with her. Like if he's obsessed with her, then maybe this was just part of the kind of girlfriend experience that he was looking for.

Maybe he wasn't ready to end their time together. Maybe he just wanted one more breakfast with her where he can hang out with her. You know, the fact that he tells her to pretend to be his girlfriend. Just two people walking around. There's no need to pretend to be in a romantic relationship. They could have just been two people hanging out together. But the fact that he tells her to do that, I kind of feel like there's something he's getting out of it, right? And look, I do have to say that there were some people who did come to the trial who said that they could hear the couple laughing together.

when they were having breakfast, which obviously, you know, points to the idea that Chloe was in on it, blah, blah, blah, but I don't know. Again, is that just Chloe trying to keep him sweet? Or are they really just that stupid that they're sitting in a cafe together laughing their heads off? It's not enough. No. It's not enough of a gotcha, I don't think, that she was laughing. No, no. She's traumatized. Exactly. And also, I'm sorry, like, was he just laughing? Like, eyewitnesses are terribly terrible at remembering things.

So I don't know. There just isn't that much evidence, in my opinion, pointing to Chloe having been in on it. Like everyone who points to her having been in on it, just the whole thing being a hoax, they're just going mainly off her behaviour. And the idea that she longed for fame. She absolutely is a victim of the Amanda Knox effect, I think. Yeah. She's just not a, she just doesn't translate well on camera. No, she comes across very strangely. she does come across a bit.

Disinterested. She does give off like sleepy drug eyes. None of those things help her. But really all people have is she doesn't sit right with me, the way she's speaking. Why didn't she run away when she had the opportunity? And she was a model who was always seeking fame. Those are the three things that people put together and say that she was in on it. That's hardly proof of anything. And there's hardly enough proof there at all.

Like, she... And all of those things can be true. and this thing still can have happened to her. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Just because she then does capitalise on her 15 minutes of fame doesn't mean it didn't happen. Which she's also, she's a child, first of all. And secondly, that's what everyone will have been telling her to do. Yeah, absolutely.

It is in their interest that she did that because they're literally agents and they take 10%. Like, that isn't proof of anything. No, it's not. And if I was her in that situation and had been so let down by Bargin' Binfield Green. And then this other gold standard celebrity agent appears from the mist and is like, I will help you, I've done this before. Of course, yeah, of course.

Absolutely. And I think you also have to link together her desire to milk the 15 minutes of fame and get exposure with also her trying to combat the narrative that was already being put in the tabloids that she wasn't telling the truth. Like that was also her seeking out that fame and going on these different chat shows and doing the book was also her own.

only way to tell people that she was telling the truth. Yeah. So it's a bit of a like self-fulfilling prophecy. And Herber had been Googling Chloe Ailing and Black Death Gang and how to administer drugs and make them at home. I'm certain that he was completely obsessed with her. He abducted her and he wanted to be her hero. I, like, salt, I buy it.

Yeah. And also, that's probably why he didn't rape her or force her to do anything explicit with him during captivity. Maybe he believed that if he treated her well, she would fall in love with him for real. He had her for six days, like completely isolated, and yet he doesn't do that. I think he's in it for the long run. I agree. I really agree. I think he was holding out for a real relationship.

He'd probably read about Stockholm syndrome, yeah, which we misunderstood. Not we as in society. He has probably read about that and been like, oh, that's how. that's how you form like an unbreakable bond with a woman that can't be undone, you kidnapped them. Yep. And then their brain does it for you. So yes, that's 100% I agree with that. I agree with that idea that I think he is like hoping that Chloe will be like eternally grateful to him and they'll go off and right off into the sunset together.

Some people could say that the fact that he doesn't physically harm her in any way, he's even like, like Chloe says, he's very gentlemanly with her. He never sexually assaults her. He never does anything. He never tortures her. Some people I have seen also point to that saying, well, that's clear evidence that Chloe was involved. What sort of man abducts a woman and then, you know, who is this unhinged and who you're saying is obsessed with her, but then has a self-restraint not to harm her in any way. Like if anything, some people say that seems too unbelievable. The thing that makes more sense is that they're in on it together. And that's why he never hurts her. Okay. Yeah. And look, honestly, if I'm being totally honest, when I first heard about this case, I definitely thought that Chloe was involved. I've had my moments, yeah.

Yeah, I definitely thought that Chloe was involved. But the more I have read about it, the more, like, you know, we've gone through all of the videos of her speaking about it and, you know, read her book and written this case. I don't think so. I don't think so. I do not think she was involved. I think those who point the finger at her

have absolutely no evidence. Like I said, they only have vibes. They're like, I don't like how this feels. I think personally, the blame for all this lies squarely at the door for the British tabloid press. They set her up to be the villain of this whole story. Now, of course, we shouldn't take everything we hear at face value. It's human nature to question things.

And Chloe's story was pretty fucking crazy. I understand why people couldn't believe it. The idea that she might be making this whole thing up was certainly an enticing narrative. And we all absolutely lapped it up. But the media were shamelessly biased against Chloe. Tabloid journalist Nick Pisa has tried to defend their work by claiming the stories were just exposing the holes in the story

and then letting readers make up their own mind. No, it wasn't. The headlines were, she made it up. Come on. Yeah. So, no, I think they just wanted a juicier story than this. woman actually being kidnapped and the juiciest story was she was kidnapped and she was fucking in on it. So no, I... F bullshit.

For Chloe, the media backlash left far more lasting scars than the actual kidnap. But in recent years, there has been a gradual shift on how her stories talked about. In 2024, the BBC aired a drama based on her story and Chloe was an advisor for it, with writer Georgia Lister saying that she hoped the show would vindicate Chloe to viewers. And in 2025, Chloe starred in her own BBC documentary, My Unbelievable Kidnapping. Perhaps the biggest thing to come out of that documentary was the reveal that Chloe has recently been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. That makes a lot of sense. Yes. And I think it also makes sense when you put it in place with people saying, Lucas Herbo is not a genius. He is not a

genius. And he's telling you, you know, he's part of this mafia thing, how did you not question any of that when he's telling you there's black death operatives everywhere who are going to shoot you? How are you believing that. I think if she does engage with like black and white thinking of like somebody is telling me this thing and I literally believe it to be true, I can understand why she's just like, yeah, why would I question it? This man has literally abducted me.

I'm in a country I don't know. Why would I question it? And I think if she is autistic, it makes even more sense. And I think it also makes sense how she presents herself in some of those interviews. And for Chloe, the pieces of the puzzle all fell into place. That diagnosis explains why she can come across as

unemotional in a way that people find hard to relate to as well as her flat affect and a tendency to smile at inappropriate times. Chloe says she gets why people find it hard to understand her because she's only just beginning to understand herself. But as her childhood best friend Tony says in the documentary, this diagnosis shouldn't be the reason people suddenly decide to believe Chloe's story now. That's a really fair point. Yeah. Because Chloe seems so outwardly strong, it's easy to forget that what she went through was a genuinely traumatic experience that would have also affected her responses. As the case is judge, Ilya Manchuni-Penchini says,

interpreting the calm demeanor that Chloe showed as a sign of the absence of trauma is a mistaken mechanism. Neurodivergent or not, Chloe should have been given the grace to react in a way that felt right to her without being eaten alive. Today, Chloe is 28 years old and still posing up a storm as a model. The experience changed her forever, making her less willing to trust strangers. She doesn't like to work with people she doesn't know,

instead preferring to focus on her own social media content and only fans, where she gets to call all of the shots. Still, Chloe refuses to see herself as a victim, living by the mantra that nothing can touch her after what she's faced. She survived not just a kidnapping, but a full-blown media onslaught where she was cast as the anti-heroine in her own story. and honestly I can get it Chloe

take a bow that is so difficult yeah I've gone on a big journey with this story I think I have as well I can see why people are suspicious and it is one of those cases

that can sit in the back of people's minds as like they half know about it yeah and then it's like oh but didn't she didn't she fake it and that then becomes the conversation and so few people are going to be like

well no actually here are all of these very like specific points. And even if you do know those things, you don't say them because you don't want to be an unbearable know-it-all. So it just evolves as this like half-remembered thing that defined her for far too long. Absolutely. You see enough pictures of her face on the front page of tabloids

with she faked it. Yes. Why would anybody question, well, what was the actual evidence that she faked it? There isn't any. So hopefully we have set the record straight today. We may be wrong. Maybe Chloe fucking.

But I'm not satisfied at all that there is enough evidence to persuade me that that's the case. No, I'm not either. No. So that's it, guys. Thank you very much for listening. We hope you enjoyed that and learned something, and we'll see you next week for another episode of Red-Hounded. Ciao!