A young woman has posted a series of bizarre posts on Instagram claiming to be missing British girl Madeleine McCann.
The Polish woman, who posts under the handle @iammadeleinemccann, purports to have evidence backing her claims that she is the youngster, who disappeared from a holiday apartment in the Algarve in Portugal in 2007. The Mirror reports that investigators are not taking her claims seriously.
German prosecutors have stated in the past that they believe the youngster is dead, and could charge chief suspect Christian Brueckner with her killing this summer. However, the Polish woman has continued to post undeterred, claiming she and the missing girl have too much in common for her claims to be ignored.
"It was something that I heard from my grandma," she said in a post. Other posts make reference to what she professes are fragmented childhood memories of holidays in "hot places" where she cannot remember her family.
She also claims freckles on her leg and a speck in her eye could be proof of her true identity. She is so convinced of her claims, she says she is willing to undergo a DNA test to prove she is related to Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.
The biography on her Instagram profile reads: "I think I can be Madeleine. I need DNA test. Police investigators from UK and Poland try to ignore me. Help me."
The woman, who has not released her name, is 21 years old but believes she may be younger. If she was confirmed as being alive today, Madeleine McCann would be 19 years old.
The owner of the account, which has more than 25,000 followers, is not the first person to claim they could be Madeleine. Despite extensive searches and countless police investigations, the youngster has never been found.
In 2021, a TikToker also called Maddie shared a clip of herself after family and friends told her she looked like the missing tot. She shared a passport photo of herself as a youngster, with a similar hairstyle, green eyes and an oval face, stacked up next to a photo of Madeleine she found online.
The disappearance of the toddler, who vanished at the age of three, sparked a public frenzy as scores of people filed reports claiming to have seen her. In 2016, it was revealed that there had been almost 9,000 reported "sightings" of the Leicestershire child in 101 countries.
The account has divided the opinion of Instagram users, whose reactions have varied from concern to disgust at what they see as the German woman's outlandish claims.
One user wrote: "I don’t understand how Kate and Gerry ain’t jumping on this… I know if this could possibly be my child I would have already done [so]." But another wrote: "I really hope this isn't a joke because it's not funny."
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