Greek authorities requested international help to identify an 'abducted' four-year-old girl found living in a camp with a couple and 13 other children
Greek authorities requested international help to identify a four-year-old girl found living in a camp with a couple and 13 other children.
Police believe up to 10 more of the youngsters may be the victims of an international trafficking ring.
The girl, known only as ‘Maria’, was found on Wednesday near Farsala in central Greece during a nationwide crackdown on illegal activities by Roma, also known as Gypsies.
The case bears similarities to theories about the disappearance of Madeleine who vanished aged three on a family holiday in Portugal on May 3, 2007.
It raises the possibility that Madeleine could still be alive six years after she disappeared.
Speaking to The Mirror, a spokesman for the McCanns said: “This gives Kate and Gerry great hope that Madeleine could be found alive.”
Dad Gerry said this week that statistics showed the younger a child is when abducted, the more likely they are to be found.
He said after Monday’s BBC Crimewatch: “There are cases over the last few years of children who have been found after they’ve been taken for a long time. I think that’s what the public needs to think about tonight.”
Scotland Yard said new evidence adds further weight to claims the three-year-old was snatched in a pre-planned abduction from her holiday apartment.
DNA tests confirmed yesterday that the mystery blue eyed girl is not related to the Greek couple who have been remanded in custody.
A 39-year-old man and 40-year-old woman have been charged with abducting a minor and remanded in custody.
Search: Missing girl A source said the youngster is believed to have been with the couple for at least two years and speaks only Roma. She is currently being assessed by child psychologists.
He said: “Police are examining a wider network of child traffickers across Europe. This girl couple have been snatched to order or sold by east european criminal gangs. We know these networks exist.”
Police are trying to establish why the girl was living with the couple, who are also accused of falsifying identity and birth certificates.
The mother claimed to have given birth to six children within a total of less than 10 months. She is accused of illegally claiming benefits for the children.
Police say they also found drugs and unregistered firearms in other parts of the settlement, which is about 170 miles north of Athens.
One police officer questioned the couple after spotting that the blonde, pale-skinned and blue-eyed girl stood out from the rest of her family.
She bore no resemblance to the Greek couple and DNA testing confirmed that they weren’t related.
Her features suggest she might be from an eastern or northern European country.
Police have notified Interpol for assistance.
Larissa police chief Vasilis Halatsis said: “We have taken the gypsy parents into custody, and the child is being taken care of in hospital.
“We are getting information from all over Europe which shows that this problem, of children going missing and falling into gypsy hands, is a problem throughout the continent.”
The suspects allegedly offered conflicting accounts - that the girl was found in a blanket, was handed to them by strangers or had a foreign father.
Appeal: Police found the girl in a gypsy camp in Farsala, central Greece
The police statement said the couple claimed to have a total 14 children, and had registered different numbers with authorities in three different parts of Greece.
Officers found three children living with them who appear to be their children - although that hasn’t yet been verified by DNA testing.
The girl is in the care of the charity The Smile Of A Child, which said it has sought the help of European and global groups for lost or abused children in tracking her parents.
Charity director Costas Giannopoulos said the child was undergoing medical examinations.
“We are shocked by how easy it is for people to register children as their own,” he told private Skai TV. “There is much more to investigate, there are other registered children that were not found in the settlement, and I believe police will unravel a thread that doesn’t just have to do with the girl.”
The name of the gypsy parents has not yet been disclosed, but they are due to appear before the public prosecutor on Monday.
Lawyers for the arrested gypsy couple appealed to the media “not to present this couple as monsters, as abusers of children”.
Marietta Palavra said: “There is nothing but love and care between the Roma parents and the 4-year old girl.”
News of the girl’s alleged abduction comes just a few days after the Metropolitan Police revealed results of a major review of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Among many claims made over the years, convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett allegedly said he saw the Madeleine twice before she vanished and claimed she was stolen to order by a gypsy gang, but denied he was involved.
During a special Crimewatch show earlier this week, detectives issued two e-fits of a man seen carrying Madeleine towards the beach on the night she vanished.
#mirror.co.uk
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