United Kingdom police arrest man over model kidnapped in Italy

London: British police said on Wednesday they had arrested the brother of a man suspected of abducting a British model in Milan and threatening to auction her online unless a ransom was paid.

Model Chloe Ayling told Italian police she had been held captive for six days after being lured to a photo shoot in Italy last month where she was kidnapped. 

Italian police said they had arrested the alleged kidnapper Lukasz Pawel Herba, a British resident born in Poland, and he had confessed to being involved in a plot.

Britain`s National Crime Agency said on Wednesday officers had detained his brother, Michal Konrad Herba, 36, in the Tividale area of Birmingham, central England on a European arrest warrant issued by Italian authorities.

He is due to appear at London`s Westminster Magistrates Court on Aug. 17.

Ayling told police that when she arrived at the studio for the Milan photo shoot, she was drugged, gagged, bound, stuffed into a bag, put into the boot of a car and driven to a village near Turin in northwest Italy.

Her lawyer said the plot was to sell the model for sex in an online auction unless a $300,000 ransom was paid.

Lukasz Herba told police he freed her and handed her to the British consulate after the group became aware she had a young child, according to documents outlining his testimony.

Ayling has given a number of TV and press interviews since returning to Britain to give details of her abduction and respond to critics who have voiced doubts about its veracity.