Elsewhere
There were two reported sightings in Belgium. The first was during May 2007 in Liège and the second occurred on 28 July on a café terrace in Tongeren. In the latter case, children’s therapist Katleen Sampermans said that Madeleine was in the company of a Dutch man and an English woman. However, the girl turned out to be the 4-year-old daughter of a Belgian man.
Security was tightened in Valletta, Malta, on 21 June following five reported sightings on the island. The total sightings had risen to 29 by 27 June.
An Irish tourist reported a sighting in Međugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the beginning of November. The child was later revealed to be the 3-year-old daughter of Slavko Dedić, a dentist from the nearby town of Ljubuški.
Dutch student Melissa Fiering claimed that she saw Madeleine with a 'tall, swarthy man', at the L'Arche motorway service station restaurant in the south of France, on 15 February 2008. However the French police, after examining CCTV evidence, determined that the sighting was not of the missing child.
The first reported sighting in Britain occurred in Dorset in February 2008. Retired civil servant Alan Cameron said that she was with a Portuguese couple who came to the door.
A sighting of Madeline McCann was reported in the Sydney central business district on 17 March. The reported sighting, of a middle-aged man carrying a blonde girl, turned out to be a false alarm.
There have been six reported sightings in Brazil. A witness reported seeing Madeleine on a plane flying to São Paulo, in late March. Five earlier reports had been investigated and discounted.
The release of the Portuguese police case files in August 2008 revealed a possible sighting, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in early May 2007. Anna Stam reported to Dutch police that a girl of three or four years of age, who resembled Madeleine, had come into her shop and had told her that the adult she was with was "a stranger" who "took me from my mummy" while she was on holiday. She added that her name was "Maddy." The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said that it was a "disgrace" that they had not been told by police about the reported sighting at the time. The files included a 14-volume annexe of reported sightings, of Madeleine, across the world.
The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet published, in October 2009, a photograph of a girl, seen in Sweden, who bore a great similarity to Madeleine. The photographer claimed that the girl only spoke English, and was accompanied by a man who spoke Swedish.
In New Zealand, CCTV video from a department store in southern Dunedin showed a girl who looked like Madeleine being led into the store by a man at around 9:00pm on 5 December 2007, seven months after her disappearance.
A sighting in Leh, India, was reported on 28 July 2011. British and American tourists reportedly saw a young girl with a French/Belgian couple, who claimed that the child was theirs. Although reports suggested DNA tests had been conducted, the chief of police in Leh, Vivek Gupta, denied the reports and stated that no DNA test had been undertaken by the police.
New Zealand police were informed of a possible sighting, in Queenstown, on 31 December 2012. The informant said that the girl she had seen had the same coloboma of the iris as Madeleine. After investigation, police identified the girl and stated that they were "absolutely satisfied" that the girl was not Madeleine.
Read more about this topic: Sightings Of Madeleine Mc Cann