Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
MADDIE ‘TAKEN FOR A RICH FAMILY’
Ex-cop fears she was smuggled into Africa by traffickers
MADELEINE Mccann may have been snatched to order by slave traders and sold to a rich family, detectives fear. A gang could have smuggled her to Africa by ferry unchecked. An ex-scotland Yard officer said: “It’s the obvious route and must be looked at.”
He didn’t look like her dad & it was odd to see a small blonde girl alone in Marrakech MARI OLLI WHO SAW GIRL SHE THINKS WAS MADELEINE IN MOROCCO IN 2007
A GIRL “identical” to Madeleine Mccann was seen on a key slave trafficking route in Morocco, looking sad and asking the man with her: “Can we see Mummy soon?”
The sighting, days after she vanished, adds weight to investigators’ fears that the youngster was smuggled into Africa by people traders who “snatched her to order” for a wealthy family. Gangs operating in lawless Mauritania, West Africa, regularly sell youngsters to rich Middle Eastern families. Ex-scotland Yard detective Colin Sutton told the Mirror: “The Mauritania line is certainly a possibility and needs to be looked at. “If someone wanted to get a three-year-old child into Africa it’s the obvious route. “The infrastructure and contacts for people-smuggling are clearly there.” It is not known if police probing Madeleine’s disappearance have looked at links to Mauritania, where slavery was not outlawed until 2007 – the year she vanished in the Algarve, aged three. But private detectives hired by the Mccanns believe there are “strong reasons” to think she was taken to Morocco, via this route into the country. Their claims are based on sightings and the proximity of Praia da Luz, where she went missing on May 3, 2007, to the town of Lagos where boats regularly depart for Africa. It is also just a four-hour drive to the Spanish port of Tarifa, where ferries cross to Tangier in Morocco. Kidnappers could have smuggled Madeleine from Praia da Luz into North Africa in just five hours using the ferry. Portuguese police failed to seal the border with Spain – 60 minutes from the resort – in the hours after she vanished. When the Mirror re-traced the most likely route an abductor would have taken, checks on the Tarifa-tangier ferry were virtually nonexistent. There were no searches carried out on vehicles boarding the boat. An abductor could easily have hidden Madeleine in the back seat or boot of a car and boarded the ferry with a £24 ticket. In Tangier, they could have taken her to a safe house or moved her unhindered into another African country. Interpol detectives in Gibraltar received a tip in August 2007 that a man was seen carrying a child resembling Madeleine in Tangier. The informant said the girl seemed “unhappy, ill-tempered and did not speak” as the man tried to buy her shoes. Soon after her disappearance a traveller told Crimestoppers they saw a girl resembling Madeleine on the Tarifatangier ferry in a dark blue Portuguese-registered saloon car on May 7, four days after she went missing. Two days after that sighting, a girl “identical” to Madeleine was seen with a man at a petrol station next to an Ibis hotel in Marrakech, in the most credible sighting so far. Tourist Mari Olli noticed a blonde girl on Avenue Abdel Krim Khattabi, a key route through the busy city and the direct road from the port. Locals claim the road is often used by smuggling and trafficking gangs. Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry Mccann of Rothley, Leics were so concerned about links to North Africa
they went to Morocco the month after she disappeared. Trafficking gangs are known to operate between Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania. The US State Department’s annual trafficking report in 2015 warned girls were being trafficked for sex in the Middle East. It warned: “Mauritania is a source and destination country for women, men and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking. Women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking in the country or the Middle East.” Mari Olli and British husband Ray Pollard, who live in Spain, had not heard of Madeleine’s disappearance when they saw the girl they believe was her. It was only when they returned home and saw the news that they made the chilling connection. Mari said the youngster she saw, who was wearing blue pyjamas, looked “sad” and asked: “Can we see Mummy soon?” The petrol station’s footage was deleted before it could be checked for clues. But on the same day an unnamed British man also spotted a girl he believed was Madeleine outside a hotel in the city. Mari alerted Portuguese and UK authorities and gave a statement to Scotland Yard detectives, who promised to call back – but she claims they did not. In desperation she emailed Leicestershire Police, describing the moment she saw who she believes was Madeleine at around 10am. She wrote: “I saw the girl inside the shop. She was wearing clear blue pyjamas. “Some pattern on the top, trousers little darker. Don’t think the trousers had any pattern. She was very small. Under one metre. She was with a man. She was standing alone, the man about a metre from her. “I looked back at her, she was very sweet. It was a strange situation because the man didn’t look like her father. “And it was very strange to see a blonde small girl standing alone in Marrakech. “She was very small and normally you would hold her in your arms or at least her hand. And he was turning away from her. She looked sad. I looked at her face, she looked at me. Then she turned to the man and said something that sounds like: ‘Can we see Mummy soon?’” Mari blames herself for not stepping in to challenge the man with the girl. “I’m still questioning it, of course I am,” said Mari, who lives in Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol. “Even after all this time I still think about what I saw. “I can’t handle it to be honest, it’s so difficult to talk about that I just start crying. I try not to think about what I could have done. The one thing I’m still convinced about is that it was Madeleine. “I could kick myself for not doing more. If I’d known then that Madeleine had been taken, then of course I would have done something.” Portuguese police files made public in 2008 reveal British police passed on the email to them. But Mari claims she was never spoken to by Portuguese officers and believes they made no attempt to trace the girl. Portuguese police in turn complained about lack of co-operation from Moroccan authorities.
Mauritania should be looked at. It’s the obvious route if you wanted to get a child into Africa COLIN SUTTON FORMER SCOTLAND YARD DETECTIVE ON SLAVE ROUTE