Love Island star Megan Barton-Hanson’s agent ‘was sent £250,000 ransom demand for kidnapped Chloe Ayling by Black Death sex gang’
TWO former Love Island stars were yesterday linked to the kidnap trial of Celebrity Big Brother star Chloe Ayling.
Ex page 3 star Danielle Sellers who appeared on the show in 2017 and Megan Barton-Hanson who was on last year, are close pals of Chloe.
Both were drawn into the case after it emerged their agents had been contacted to pay a £250,000 ransom in return for her release.
Chloe told the court in Milan she gave three names to her kidnappers of people who could pay the money.
They included businessman Rory McCarthy, a pal of Richard Branson, agent David Read and Paul Baxendale-Walker former editor of Loaded magazine.
Chloe said:”They were three of the richest people I knew. I wanted to avoid being killed.”
She added:”Paul looked after my friend Megan. He was her benefactor. David Read represented my bets friend Danielle.”
Michal’s lawyer Simone Zancani believes Chloe cooked up the kidnapping to gain publicity and spark interest from Big Brother.
Megan and Danielle could called as witnesses in the trial but there is no suggestion they acted inappropriately.
Under cross examination Chloe was also asked by Mr Zancani why she had given Michal and Lukasz the wrong telephone number for her mother.
Chloe replied: “I ended up giving them the old one. I couldn’t remember the new one.”
Sellers was only briefly on Love Island and was also linked to I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here star Jack Maynard.
Megan has revealed she was bisexual and by telling Love Island chiefs she was “more into girls” cost her a place on the 2017 show.
Last year she didn’t mention it and was immediately cast in the popular ITV2 show.
‘DRUGGED WITH KETAMINE’
Earlier she told her kidnap trial she was injected with Ketamine after she was abducted by the “black death” sex gang.
Mum-of-one Chloe, 21, claims she was bundled into the back of a car by brothers Lukasz and Michal Herba after turning up for a bogus photoshoot.
Last week she told the court in Milan via video link she was injected, handcuffed and thrown into a black duffel bag.
Today prosecutor Paolo Storari asked her if she knew what she had been injected with and replied: “Ketamine.”
The court was also shown puzzles and word games in a notebook Chloe had played with Lukasz in the bedroom during her captivity in a farmhouse near Turin.
‘SEX GAMES’
Mr Storari said: “Don’t you find it strange a kidnapper makes his hostage play games in bed?”
Chloe replied: “That didn’t happen in the first few days. It was towards the end. I was just trying to get out of the situation acting nice and being normal.”
She added: “Lukasz said he had feelings towards me. He said he had lost his mother and felt for me but we know now that was a lie.”
Chloe also confirmed she had written a book about her kidnap in July 2017 and said she had given interviews and appeared on Big Brother.
But she added: “My earnings haven’t gone up.”
Mr Storari asked Chloe: “Without making any moral judgement can we state that you used your bad Milan experiences to your advantage?”
Chloe replied: “Not really because when you are constantly being disbelieved and called a liar you feel you have to constantly defend yourself so it’s not an advantage.
“It completely ruined my reputation by having this thing so public, all this attention on me was not my choice.”
It completely ruined my reputation by having this thing so public, all this attention on me was not my choice
Chloe Ayling
When asked if she had ever used drugs and if she had tried to get out of the handcuffs Chloe said: “I’ve only used drugs once but not ketamine.”
She added: “I couldn’t get out of the handcuffs because it wasn’t possible.”
Mr Storari also asked her why during questioning in 2017 she had denied using drugs quoting her as saying she never “smoked, drank or used drugs”.
When pressed when she said: “It was cocaine. Once at a party a couple of months before the kidnap.”
In a previous hearing she broke down in tears as she told the court that her “Black Death” gang kidnappers shoved her in a bag then threatened to sell her to sex traffickers who fed victims to tigers.
Dressed in a black jacket and green coloured top, Ayling dabbed her eyes as she told the court that she offered sex to one of the men, Lukasz Herba, 31, in a desperate bid to escape.
He was convicted of her abduction last year and is serving 16 years in jail, while his brother Michal, 37, is currently on trial in Milan, Italy.
THE ‘BLACK DEATH’ GROUP
During the trial, Chloe said the two brothers were working for an organisation called the Black Death group — found on the Dark Web.
She said: “They said they had taken me for a sex trafficking gang. Lukasz said he was a hitman for the gang.
“He was high level. He would kill people by poisoning them or shooting them. Lukasz said that he took care of the killings as he was higher up in the gang.
“He said they were looking at 300,000 USD for me. He said the gang needed money and he wanted to know if my family had money to pay a ransom.
In her dramatic testimony, Chloe revealed how she’d:
- Been shoved in a duffel bag then threatened with being sold to sex traffickers
- Told she’d be fed to tigers once the gang were finished with her
- Asked to account for a $300,000 ransom
- Been injected and knocked unconscious
- Tied up and handcuffed to furniture
“I said they wouldn’t be able to pay that. He asked if my agent Phil Green could pay and I said he couldn’t pay that either.
“Lukasz asked me for three names I could think of who could pay the ransom.”
When asked if Lukasz had talked about sex slave auctions Chloe said:”Yes, he said they were all in the Middle East and young virgins were sold for the most.
Who is Chloe Ayling?
- Chloe Ayling, 21, was snatched and held captive by two brothers from Italy’s ‘Black Death’ group after she turned up to a fake photoshoot
- She says that she was drugged, stuffed in a duffel bag and imprisoned in a remote Italian farmhouse for five days, before being auctioned on the dark web for £250,000
- Lukasz Herba, 31, was convicted of her abduction last year and is currently serving 16 years in jail
- Ayling spoke to the court via video as his brother, Michal, 37, is currently on trial in Milan, Italy
- Mother-of-one Ayling told the court the brothers kidnapped her in order to sell her to a Middle Eastern sex trafficking gang
- She said she was let go when the brothers found out she had a child, because the gangs paid a high price ‘young virgins’
Later Chloe described in horrific detail how Lucasz had warned her of what happened to the girls sold to the sex traffickers.
She said: “He said that the girls were passed around wealthy Middle East businessman and their relatives who abused them.
“He said that once they had enough of the girls they were killed and fed to pet tigers.
“He said they targeted girls outside nightclubs and he said kidnappers were not allowed to sexually touch girls they had kidnapped.”
“But as I already had a child I wouldn’t be worth very much. I can’t remember how much they said I would go for.”
Mr Storari then read out her original police statement from July 2017 in which Chloe had said the starting price was 75,000 USD.
She replied: ”Yes, now I remember. That was the price.”
Chloe was then shown a picture the gang planned to use in an advert the gang had made advertising her and asked if she recognised it.
It showed her lying on the ground dressed in a patterned body suit unconscious.
She said: ”Yes, that’s the one they wanted to use.”
THE FAKE GLAMOUR SHOOT
In court today, Chloe described how she had turned up for a photo shoot in Milan in July 2017, but then discovered it was a set up before she was snatched and thrown in the back of a car.
She said she had been told to arrive for an assignment to shoot a series of glamour motorcycle pictures for Bike Leathers.
Chloe said: ”I felt an arm on my nose and face and I tried to pull away but I couldn’t fight for long.
“There was two men. They both had balaclavas on and I suddenly felt an injection in my right wrist.
“Straight away I felt drowsy and I fell to the floor unconscious. When I started to wake up I was in a restricted area, I was in a black duffel bag.
“I was in a black duffel bag. I had tape all around my mouth and I had handcuffs on my wrists and handcuffs on my ankles.”
Chloe Ayling speaks in court
“I had tape all around my mouth and I had handcuffs on my wrists and handcuffs on my ankles.
“I was only wearing my bodysuit. I had been stripped of my clothes. I had my socks on and a hole had been cut in the bag so I could breathe.
“At first I didn’t know where I was but then as the drugs wore off I could hear the noise of a car and realised I was in a bag in the boot of a car.
“I tried to speak and I tried to get the attention of the driver. The car came to a stop and the boot was opened and one of the masked guys got in with me.
HANDCUFFED TO THE FURNITURE
Under questioning from prosecutor Paolo Storari, Chloe described how she was handcuffed to furniture in a bedroom at the farmhouse where the brothers had taken her in Southern Italy.
When asked to go into further details she said:”I can’t remember all of it. I just remember being handcuffed to the bedroom furniture.
“There were three of us in the room. One was Michal and the other guy has a mask on and he pointed to a sleeping bag on the floor.
“I didn’t know if I was to get into it or lie on top of it so I lay on top of it.”
She told the court she had later recognised Michal and Lukasz from pictures she had been shown after they removed their masks.
Mr Storari asked her what conversation she had with the brothers in the farmhouse where she was being held.
“He said no one would hurt me and he said he didn’t know where we going. He had heavy accented English. He said no one will hurt you.
“I later recognised him as Michal Herba after the British media showed me his picture.”
A DESPERATE BID TO ESCAPE
Ayling told prosecutor Paolo Storari: “We were in a double bed. I was next to him. We were together.
“At the start the conversation was very formal, then we started chatting and he complimented me.
“I saw this as my chance of escape, to get alongside him. He made sexual suggestions and I said I wasn’t in the mood at that time.
“I asked him if he could let me go and then afterwards perhaps we could have something. He was very excited by this.
“He then asked me to go in the shower and he stayed in the bedroom. He said he was feeling very sexually frustrated. He did something in the bedroom.”
Ayling gave evidence via video from Westminster Magistrates court, while the trial took place in Milan, Italy.
Defence Lawyers have long wanted to cross examine her and enacted her to testify in person in Italy but she refused to go to Milan claiming she was “scared”.
Michal’s lawyer Simone Zancabi pointed out she was in Milan a few months ago, posting pictures describing it as “one of my favourite cities”.
A ‘PLOTTED PUBLICITY STUNT’
Lukasz’ trial last year heard that Ayling had been held hostage for six days in an isolated farmhouse near Turin.
Lukasz claimed Chloe – who later appeared on Celebrity Big Brother and wrote a book on her ordeal – had plotted the kidnap as a publicity stunt.
She was earning £600 on average for glamour photo shoots involving mainly motorbike magazines.
Although the Polish-born both brothers were living in the West Midlands at the time and Lukasz was arrested immediately in Italy after dropping Chloe off at the British Consulate in Milan.
Michal was extradited from Britain to face trial and is jointly accused with his brother of kidnap but denies the charge.
Yesterday, the glamour model Chloe Ayling bared virtually all on Instagram ahead of her court appearance today at her “kidnap” trial.
During the trial, Ayling said she had attended another photoshoot in Paris in April 2017 but it had been cancelled because of a terror attack.
She said: “I met Lukasz there but he told me his name was Andre. It was the same man in Milan.”
She was not obliged to give evidence at his trial but has now been summonsed to appear at Michal’s trial although she will be testifying via video link from London after claiming she was “too scared” to return.
Yesterday she posted pictures of herself travelling back from Singapore after a holiday with one snap showing her wearing just a towel with her hands strategically placed over her chest.
Since her kidnap she has written a book about her ordeal and appeared on celebrity Big Brother where she flirted with former footballer Jermaine Pennant.
It has also since emerged she is making a living as a webcam model where punters pay £2 to chat with her.
Michal’s lawyer Simone Zancabi told The Sun: “I’m very much looking forward to finally cross examining Chloe. There are many aspects of her story that just don’t add up.
“I would have preferred her to testify in Milan in person but she said she was scared too return – although she posted a picture of herself on Instagram saying it was her “favourite city”.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.