Gypsies were Grooming Maria to be a Child Bride

Child bride: Little Maria may have been married off at 12 for a substantial dowry. She is pictured with Eleftheria Dimopoulou, and husband Hristos Salis

Police now believe that Maria, who is thought to be four or five, was being prepared for marriage at the age of 12.
Her pale skin, near-white hair and blue eyes would have made her a ‘prize bride’ among the gipsy community.

She would have fetched Salis and Dimopoulou a large dowry, according to police sources.

Officers investigating the case believe the prospect of a bridal pay-off is why Maria had not yet been sold.

She was treated as an ‘investment’ to be nurtured and protected until she reached the traditional Roma ‘coming of age’ - usually at the age of 12. 

Police now believe that Maria, who is thought to be four or five, was being prepared for marriage at the age of 12. Right, a file picture of a child at a gipsy wedding

Maria was given her own room in the brick-built house where she was discovered, in the gipsy settlement of Tabakou on the edge of Farsala, central Greece.

There is growing evidence she was used by Salis and Dimopoulou to beg and dance for money.

They also made money from child benefit payments she entitled them to.

Neighbours say the couple purchased Maria for as little as £850 from a Bulgarian couple when she was a baby.

Detectives are now looking into the possibility that she was offered cheap by a gang on the run from police. The gang, smuggling children from Bulgaria into Greece, may have intended to sell her to a wealthy Greek couple for up to £22,000.

They are looking at case files of three illegal adoption circles that were dismantled by police between 2009 and 2011.

The earliest operation is said to be of most interest. The 2009 operation led to the arrests of 11 members of a gang operating in central and northern Greece.

The circle featured a Bulgarian ‘middle man’ who employed a local gipsy couple to locate potential buyers.

The case is of particular interest because when he appeared in court on Monday Salis provided officials with the name of a Bulgarian ‘mediator’ and his mobile phone number and urged the court to trace him.

In a separate case, Greek police yesterday arrested three gipsies on the Greek island of Lesbos on suspicion of abducting a two-month-old baby.

They believe a young couple - a 21-year-old man and 19-year-old woman - and an older woman, 51, had obtained the child in Athens.

The Greek birth registration system has come under close scrutiny since Maria was discovered last Wednesday.

Konstantinos Tzanakoulis, mayor of Larissa, the closest city to the camp she was found, said yesterday that it was ‘pure luck’ that her case was uncovered at all.

‘Who knows how many such cases exist?’ he asked, blaming a system he said was riddled with loopholes. ‘We may never know.’

(Source: dailymail.co.uk)