Claims made by a Polish woman who believes she is Madeleine McCann have been shut down by local police. Maddie went missing in 2007 from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal's Algarve.
Despite multiple huge police investigations, very little information has ever been discovered about what happened to the then-three-year-old after her disappearance. Julia Wendell, 21 shocked the world after she made wild claims on social media about her true identity and insisted she had evidence to back up that she was the missing Brit, the Mirror reports.
However, Pawel Noga of the Provincial Police Headquarters in Wroclaw says the force have now ruled out any truth behind her claims after meeting her family. Francisco Marco, who is a private detective that led the hunt for Maddie after her disappearance, says he has carried out an analysis which proves Ms Wendell is not the missing girl.
He told Spanish network RAC1 : "I have done a biometric search and there is no resemblance to Madeleine's features." Similarly, the former director of the Metodo 3 detective agency said it was bizarre that Julia had chosen to post the claims to social media before reaching out to Gerry and Kate McCann.
He added: "I can think it's a fraud, but I can't say without evidence. This girl contacted the police and no one paid attention to her, and she later opened the Instagram account where she now has thousands of followers when she had very few before."
Polish charity Missing Years Ago previously released a statement on behalf of Julia's "devastated" family who discredited their own daughter's claims. The family said: "For us as a family it is obvious that Julia is our daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece, cousin and step niece. We have memories, we have pictures.
"Julia also has these photos, because she took them from the family home with the birth certificate, as well as numerous hospital discharges. We always tried to understand all situations that happened with Julia.
"Threats to our address from Julia, her lies and manipulations, activity on the internet. We've seen it all and we've tried to prevent it, to explain, we've asked her to stop. We always tried to help her get back on her feet. Julia has been of age for several years. She has moved out of the house.
"Julia once wanted to be a singer, a model. She always wanted to be popular. What's happening now she got one million followers.
"We're afraid Julia will carry the inevitable. The internet won't forget, and it's obvious that Julia isn't Maddie. We are devastated at this current situation."
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here .
