Police who are looking into the claims, as well as the lady’s own family, have rejected the assertions made by a Polish woman that she is Madeleine McCann.
Due to similarities in their ages and appearances, Julia Faustyna, 21, also known as Wendell or Wendlet, gained notoriety after posting on Instagram and Tiktok that she might be the missing Brit.
But, family members argued that “it’s evident Julia isn’t Maddie” and accused her of having attention-seeking tendencies after gaining over a million followers under the handle @iammadeleinemccann.
And now detectives have similarly ‘ruled out’ her account, with Pawel Noga, a spokesman for the police in Wroclaw telling Gazeta the investigation ‘contradicts the version presented by this woman’.
A private eye linked with the McCann case also cast doubt on the extraordinary claims.
Speaking to Spanish newspaper El Independiente, investigator Francisco Marco said: ‘Without knowing thee details in depth, it does not add up to me.’
Faustyna’s account started posting photos earlier this month, pointing out how she supposedly bears a distinctive spot in her right eye and beauty mark on her cheek which resemble Maddie’s.
She also claims to have post-traumatic amnesia stemming from childhood abuse at the hands of a German paedophile.
Madeleine McCann: A timeline of key dates and developments
2007
May 3: Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, leave their children asleep in their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in southern Portugal while they dine with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant.
Nothing is amiss when Mr McCann checks on the youngsters just after 9pm, but when his wife goes back at about 10pm she finds Madeleine missing.
Jane Tanner, one of the friends dining with the McCanns, reports having seen a man carrying a child earlier that night.
– May 14: Detectives take an Anglo-Portuguese property developer in for questioning and make him an ‘arguido’, or formal suspect, but this is later withdrawn.
– August 11: Exactly 100 days after Madeleine disappeared, investigating officers publicly acknowledge for the first time that she could be dead.
– September 7: During questioning of Mr and Mrs McCann, detectives make them both ‘arguidos’ in their daughter’s disappearance.
– September 9: The McCanns fly back to England with their two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.
2008
– July 21: The Portuguese authorities shelve their investigation and lift the ‘arguido’ status of the McCanns and the property developer.
2011
– May 12: Mrs McCann publishes a book about her daughter’s disappearance, on Madeleine’s eighth birthday.
Scotland Yard launches a review of the case after a request from Home Secretary Theresa May, supported by then Prime Minister David Cameron.
2012
– April 25: Scotland Yard detectives say they believe Madeleine could still be alive, release an age-progression picture of how she might look as a nine-year-old, and call on the Portuguese authorities to reopen the case, but Portuguese police say they have found no new material.
2013
– July 4: Scotland Yard confirms it has launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, into Madeleine’s disappearance two years into a review of the case. It has ‘genuinely new’ lines of inquiry and has identified 38 people of interest, including 12 Britons.
– October 24: Portuguese police confirm that a review of their original investigation has uncovered new lines of inquiry, and they reopen the case.
2014
– January 29: British detectives fly to Portugal amid claims they are planning to make arrests.
– June 3: Sniffer dogs and specialist teams are used to search an area of scrubland close to where Madeleine went missing.
– December 12: Detectives begin questioning 11 people who it is thought may have information on the case.
2015
– September 16: The Government discloses that the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine has cost more than £10 million.
– October 28: Scotland Yard cuts the number of officers working on the inquiry from 29 to four.
2017
– April 30: The McCanns prepare to mark 10 years since their daughter’s disappearance with a BBC interview in which they vow to do ‘whatever it takes for as long as it takes’ to find her.
2019
– May 3: Local media reports say Portuguese detectives are investigating a foreign paedophile as a suspect in the abduction of Madeleine.
2020
– June 3: Police reveal that a 43-year-old German prisoner, later named as Christian Brueckner, has been identified as a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.
– June 4: Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange, which had received £12.3 million in funding up to April 2020, is still a missing person inquiry as detectives have no ‘definitive evidence whether Madeleine is alive or dead’.
2021
– May 4: Kate and Gerry McCann post a statement on the official Find Madeleine campaign website saying they still cling to the hope of seeing their daughter again as they prepare to mark her 18th birthday on May 12.
2022
– April 21: Christian Brueckner is made an ‘arguido’, a formal suspect, by Portuguese authorities.
– May 3: The McCann family say it is ‘essential’ they learn the truth of what happened to their daughter on the 15th anniversary of her disappearance.
– October 11: Brueckner is charged with three counts of rape and two charges of child sex abuse, unrelated to Madeleine’s disappearance.
Sharing a photo of the police sketch of a suspect witnesses reported seeing carrying a young child in the Portuguese resort of Praia de Luz on the night Maddie disappeared in May 2007Julia said: ‘I recognise this person..it looks very similar to my abbuser [sic].’
But in a statement released through the Missing Years Ago organisation in Poland, her family said they were ‘devastated’ by the media attention her claims have attracted.
‘The internet won’t forget, and it’s obvious that Julia isn’t Maddie,’ they said.
‘We are devastated at this current situation. We’ve seen it all and we’ve tried to prevent it, to explain, we’ve asked her to stop.’