Madeleine McCann was smuggled to America by a paedophile ring with connections in Britain, a club bouncer has claimed.
Marcelino Italiano, who works in a nightclub in the Algarve has told police he knows the gang who abducted Madeleine McCann when she was three years old.
The Angolan bouncer said that the paedophile ring is run by high-profile Portuguese businessmen and lawyers, with international links. Madeleine is likely to have been smuggled America, he said.
According to Italiano, 36, a number of respected figures in the towns of Faro and Albufeira are secretly involved.
“I know these people were involved and I have been told that Madeleine McCann may now be in America.
“I can’t say how, but I have known these people and believe they can get away with anything,” Italiano told The Sun.
An artist’s impression of what Madeleine McCann might look like today.
He also alleges that the paedophile ring has targeted an Algarve orphanage.
“There have been over a dozen children kidnapped. They prey on the weak and vulnerable,” he told the Sun.
Italiano said that he’s been attacked by the gang several times for threatening to reveal the identity of its ringleader. He has now fled across the border into Spain, after giving his dossier of information on the gang to police on Monday.
“They are ruthless. I have been attacked twice for trying to investigate it and even lost my front tooth in one attack.”
The McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell, said: “As with all such investigations regarding Madeleine, this man has done the right thing by going to the Spanish police authorities.
“They will investigate it, as will the private investigators hired by the family.”
On May 3, 2007, Madeleine – then three years old – disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
