Polish woman Julia Wandelt claiming to be Madeleine McCann is arrested in UK
A Polish woman who insists she’s Madeleine McCann has been arrested as she arrived at a UK airport on Wednesday.
Julia Wandelt — who also goes by Julia Wendell or Julia Faustyna — was handcuffed and taken into custody just moments after landing on British soil, the Daily Mail reports.
Police at Bristol Airport approached the 23-year-old and arrested her on suspicion of stalking and harassing the missing girl’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann.
Wandelt had flown in from Wrocław in Poland and was due to meet a friend in the UK. The friend, who has not been named but is thought to be aged in her 60s, was also arrested.
The arrest comes just days after Wandelt alleged that a new set of DNA test results “strongly support” her theory that she is related to Gerry McCann.
She initially garnered global attention in 2023 after she created the “@IamMadeleineMcCann” Instagram account where she questioned whether she was the 3-year-old who vanished on a family vacation in Portugal in 2007.
However, Wandelt was dealt a blow in April 2023 after a DNA test determined she wasn’t the missing girl.
Instead, the test found she was of Polish, Lithuanian and Romanian heritage, meaning she couldn’t be Madeleine. As a result, she apologized to Kate and Gerry for the ordeal.
The Post has reached out to the McCanns and Avon and Somerset Police for comment.
Earlier this month, Wandelt returned to Instagram with a new account, @amijuliawandelt. In several posts, she shared new DNA results that she claims were submitted to a “world expert” in the field.
While she didn’t name the expert, Wandelt insisted that her DNA matched up to some of the toddler’s key facial features.
In a series of posts on the platform, in which she referred to Kate and Gerry McCann as “my parents,” Wandelt claimed that her “actual DNA results show that I am part British, part Irish.”
She added that genetic evidence “strongly supports that Gerry McCann could be Julia Wandelt’s biological father.”
The McCanns, for their part, have “refused” to participate in the tests.
Wandelt had previously gone to great lengths to prove she was the missing girl, including by submitting samples for three different forensic examinations to outline her DNA and a 23andMe-style genetic test to establish her ancestry.
On social media, she attempted to prove her case by pointing out physical similarities between herself and Madeleine.
She also appeared on “Dr. Phil,” where she denied her biological parents’ claim that she stole her own birth certificate and childhood photos to hide her true identity.
