A Roma couple of a 39-year-old man and 40-year-old woman, who appeared to be the adoptive parents of a young blond, blue-eyed girl, are to be taken to court today to plead their case. The couple faces felony charges of child abduction and repeatedly issuing false certifications.
The 40-year-old woman insists she was given the child outside a supermarket by another woman, who then disappeared. The age and identity of the girl, who goes by the name of “Maria”, have not yet been determined, but it is thought that she is 5 or 6 years old. The police believe that the child might have been abducted by an international kidnapping ring and are examining the possible involvement of a Bulgarian man. The police found two more girls and one boy at the home of the Roma couple.
In cooperation with Interpol, the Greek authorities are looking into links with international child trafficking rings. Since the news broke out on Friday and pictures of the young girl were publicized by the police, many parents of missing and abducted children are hopeful that the young girl might be their own. DNA tests are being carried out in hopes of finding a match, after it was proven that the Roma couple were not the child’s biological parents.
The 40-year-old woman had two different ID cards and had registered her family details at two different municipalities; in Larissa she appears to be the mother of five girls and one boy, while in Trikala she was registered as the mother of four girls. The 39-year-old man had also registered as the father of four children in Farsala.
The police believe that the couple had registered multiple times in order to fraudulently collect benefits. Curiously no alarm bells rung when she declared that she had given birth to three children in five months in 1993 and another three in the space of three months in 1994 and 1995. The couple had even managed to issue a tax registration number for the young girl.
