A man was arrested in the alleged kidnapping of a British model. The woman thought she was traveling to Milan for a photo shoot, but was instead drugged and stuffed into a suitcase. She was handcuffed and held inside a home in northern Italy before she was released by the 30-year-old kidnapper, Lukasz Pawel Herba, who is a Polish citizen with a British residency.
Policeman Lorenzo Bucossi explained that the woman had come to Milan and was abducted on July 11.
From a Milan police statement:
“Attacked, drugged, handcuffed and closed inside a suitcase, that’s how a 20-year-old English model was kidnapped on July 11 in Milan to be sold to the best offer on pornography sites, on the internet.”
The woman had arrived in Milan on July 10 and was supposed to do the photography session the next day, the statement said. A photographer had booked the session through the model’s agent, but as soon as she stepped inside the Milan apartment for the appointment, she was attacked by two men, according to the police account.
“The kidnappers loaded the suitcase with the girl (inside) into a car trunk” and drove to a rural home in a hamlet outside Turin, the statement said. In the house, “the model was kept handcuffed to a wooden dresser in a bedroom” until she was released on July 17, the police said. Police suspect the Polish man advertised the “sale” of the woman online, while at the same time demanding ransom from the woman’s agent of $300,000.
As far as the authorities know, no ransom was paid. An investigation, primarily in Britain, is reaching as far as Poland and Italy. It was reported that the kidnapper let his victim go because he discovered she had a child and considered her unsuitable for the sex trade.
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