Greek police have asked for Interpol’s help in an effort to locate the parents of a 4-year-old girl known as Maria, found living with a Roma family near Farsala in central Greece’s region Thessaly. Even though a lawyer acting on behalf of the couple arrested for kidnapping the child claims they simply took the girl in when she was abandoned by her foreign national mother, police believes the girl was abducted in 2009.
The child is being looked after by “The Smile of the Child”, a charity organisation, as authorities attempt to find her family. DNA tests showed that the Roma man and woman with whom she lived were not her biological parents.
Police believe the pair that claimed originally to be Maria’s parents, a 39-year old man and a 40-year old woman, both Greek nationals, were involved in human trafficking as records show them having a total of 14 children, registered in three different parts of Greece. In response to questions about why the couple had registered so many children, their lawyer claimed it was a way of maximizing the state benefits they could receive.
The case has received international attention and a spokesman for the parents of Madeleine McCann, a British girl who went missing in Portugal in 2007, said the child’s discovery had given them “great hope” their daughter would be found alive.
Anyone with information is asked to call at the European Hotline for Missing Children 116 000, contact “The Smile of the Child” at +30 210 76 09 550 or send an email at 116000@hamogelo.gr