Daily StarCOPS PROBE NEW MADDIE SIGHTING14th May 2008 By Jerry Lawton
POLICE were last night probing a possible sighting of Madeleine McCann on a plane bound for Brazil.
ABOVE: Police are investigating the possible sighting
A passenger insists the missing five-year-old was on a flight to São Paulo six weeks ago.
Interpol officers were last night investigating the claims, along with private eyes hired by the McCanns.
There have been five other reported sightings of Madeleine in Brazil. And witnesses claim to have seen her in Argentina and Chile.
Last night the McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said the couple were awaiting official reports on the new sighting.
He said they were “grateful” to the public for keeping up the hunt more than a year after Madeleine’s disappearance.
While her GP mum Kate, 40, and heart consultant dad Gerry, 39, from Rothley, Leics, are convinced she is still alive they are refusing to get their hopes up.
The claimed sighting was reported to Interpol by a foreign embassy in Brazil.
Interpol’s Brazilian chief Jorge Pontes confirmed they were following up the lead.
He said: “We have a witness insisting they saw the child on a flight to São Paulo.”
A first reported sighting of Madeleine in Brazil came just eight days after she vanished from her parents’ holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May last year.
A man calling himself Mark phoned authorities in England claiming he had seen her with a woman at a book fair near Rio de Janeiro.
Police looked into the claim but could not trace the girl.
If Madeleine is in São Paulo police face a massive task tracking her down.
The city has a population of nearly 11million – the fifth biggest on the planet.
And the airport, where Madeleine was reportedly spotted, has connecting flights to hundreds of other countries.
Last night Mr Mitchell said the McCanns’ own invest-igators, from Spanish detective agency Metodo 3, were separately probing the sighting.
He said: “There have been a handful of possible sightings of Madeleine in South America. Some have been reported, others have not.
“Kate and Gerry have been informed about this.
“They are neither pinning their hopes on it or getting depressed about it.
“They are waiting to hear something formal down the line either from police in that country or their investigators
“There have been a number of possible sightings of Madeleine around the world, including in Chile and Argentina.
“While Kate and Gerry are grateful to the public for remaining vigilant, they cannot invest their emotions in every reported sighting.”
Possible sightings in at least nine other countries have so far led to nothing.
Witnesses claim to have seen Maddie in Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Belgium, Bosnia, France, Malta, Australia and even in Dorset, England, three months ago.
In most cases, blonde girls of a similar age to her have been traced and ruled out.
In the others, trails followed by police and private detectives have gone cold.
