Devastating three-word email police received after woman was kidnapped to be sold on the dark web

Police investigating the disappearance of a 20-year-old girl received a harrowing email from her captor.

In 2017, British model Chloe Ayling jetted to Milan, Italy, for what she believed to be a photoshoot. However, in a devastating turn of events, Chloe was drugged and abducted by the man who had been emailing her agent and posing as a photographer named 'Andre Lazio'.

Chloe had been kidnapped with the intention of being auctioned and sold on the dark web, but fortunately the young woman lived to tell the tale. Ultimately, Chloe's captor started to get feelings for her and she used this to talk him into releasing her.

Meanwhile, police in both Italy and England were working hard to try locate the model before she was auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Chloe Ayling was kidnapped in 2017 (chloeayling97/Instagram)

On the day of the deadline, police received a gut-wrenching email that left one investigator feeling like he'd 'failed'.

The email simply read 'she's gone mate', implying that Chloe had already been sold. At this time the police were unaware that Chloe was still somewhat safe.

One of the investigators on the 2017 case took part in a new BBC docu-series, albeit anonymously.

The series is called Chloe Ayling: My Unbelievable Kidnapping and the first episode aired on BBC last night (August 4).

Speaking in the tell-all documentary, the investigator recalled the moment he received the email informing him that Chloe had supposedly been sold.

He said: "There was a single email that came in around 3am that just said 'she's gone'. She was going to be sold into the sex industry. You don't know where she's going to be held or for how long, what's she's going to endure... You think, well there's no coming back from that."

"That moment was terrible," he continued. "It was probably the lowest ebb in 30 years. I'd been given a responsibility and I'd failed. It's not an easy thing to admit but it's true."

But Chloe hadn't been sold and the next day the investigator found out that her kidnapper had taken to her to the Milan consulate instead.

While she was told to end any investigations into her abduction, Chloe went on to the tell the authorities everything about her captor, who was later identified as Łukasz Herba.

Almost a year on from the scary ordeal Łukasz went to trial and was found found guilty of kidnapping Chloe. He was sentenced to almost 17 years behind bars.