A woman who for two years has claimed to be missing Madeleine McCann is in police custody in Britain after arriving on a flight from Poland.
According to The Daily Mail, Julia Wandelt flew from Wroclaw to Bristol, England, and was immediately arrested at the airport on Wednesday.
The report said Wandelt, 23, was set to meet a friend who lives in Cardiff, Wales, when police officers took her away. The friend, believed to be in her 60s, was also arrested.
“I’m trying to find out what’s happened but it appears Julia has been arrested at Bristol Airport (Wednesday) evening just after she got off the plane,” Wandelt’s media contact Surjit Singh Clair told the newspaper.
“The police have reportedly arrested her on an allegation of stalking and harassing the McCanns.”
For two years, Wandelt has claimed to be the child of Gerry and Kate McCann who went missing just shy of her fourth birthday while on vacation with her family in Portugal on May 3, 2007.
Wandelt attracted media attention in February 2023 when an Instagram account named @IAmMadeleineMcCann was created. She also appeared on the U.S. talk show Dr. Phil to discuss the possibility that her claim is true.
Wandelt began posting to a new account @amijuliawandelt this month where she shared DNA results along with voice, facial and dental comparisons.
“Since my parents in Poland and Kate and Gerry McCann have refused to take a DNA test, my DNA results were submitted to a world expert who compared them to the DNA found at the Madeleine McCann crime scene in Portugal,” she wrote on Feb. 10.
She alleges that an independent analysis shows a match to the missing child’s eyes, teeth and voice.
“My actual DNA results show that I am part British, part Irish,” and not 100% Polish, she claimed on Instagram last week.
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